Apple's new Mac Pro may be equipped with Intel's latest Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 CPUs

After one and a half years Apple's Mac Pro workstation is finally due for an update. A few weeks ago, we reported that Apple was still planning to equip the professional desktop computer with Intel CPUs instead of its own ARM-based processors. This rumor has now gained more steam as a leaker confirmed that Apple will use Intel's latest 10nm Ice Lake Xeon CPUs in its upcoming Mac Pro refresh.

According to the report, Apple will use CPUs from Intel's Xeon W-3000 series which are slated to hit the market in the coming weeks. These workstation and server processors for the socket LGA 4189 can draw as much as 270w and support up to 64 PCIe lanes and eight DDR4 modules for a total of 4TB of memory. The top-of-the-line Intel Xeon W-3375 will supposedly feature 38 cores and 76 threads and provide the kind of processing power that professional users yearn for.

This most powerful Ice Lake Xeon CPU is expected to retail for over US$6,000, which means that it won't be affordable for most regular users. For professional users however, the new Intel CPUs are a noticeable upgrade from the processing units that are found in the current Mac Pro, which tops out at 28 cores. It's noteworthy that Apple still seems to prefer Intel's Xeon CPUs over AMD's Threadripper PRO processors (US$1,148 on Amazon), even though AMD supplies Apple with the GPUs that are used in the Mac Pro.