TL; DR
- Apple is reportedly skipping M6 Pro and M6 Max chips in favor of an M7 generation.
- The base M6 chip is still on track, with a 12-core GPU and 200 GB/s bandwidth.
- M7 Pro and M7 Max are expected by the end of 2027, with M7 Ultra arriving in 2028.
Apple is reportedly changing its regular Mac chip roadmap. Per Bloomberg, the company plans to skip the M6 Pro and M6 Max chips entirely. Instead, it wants to jump straight to a full M7 lineup for its higher-end machines.
If true, this would be the first time Apple has released only a base chip in its M-series, a pattern that the company has held since the M1 came out in 2020.
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What The M6 Chip Might Bring To The Table
The base M6, internally codenamed Komodo, has been tested in a refreshed entry-level MacBook Pro codenamed J804.
It comprises a redesigned GPU with up to 12 graphics cores (vs. 10 on the M5), memory bandwidth of approximately 200GB/s (vs. 153GB/s on the M5), and a faster Neural Engine for local AI-based tasks.
Finally, it could also debut with an upgraded media engine that improves video encoding and decoding. The chip is expected to power entry-level Macs, such as the baseline MacBook Air debuting in 2027, as well as future iPad Pro and iPad Air models.
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What Comes After The M6 Chip And When
Rather than releasing more iterations of the M6 chip, Apple will reportedly fast-track an AI-focused M7 generation.
The M7 base chip could arrive in the first half of 2027, followed by M7 Pro and M7 Max by the end of that year. An M7 Ultra could also arrive in 2028 for the highest-end Mac Studio. Per the report, the entire M7 family of chips is internally codenamed “Andros.”
Apple’s M5 Ultra is also still in the pipeline and might debut in a future Mac Studio. It could feature approximately 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and support for up to a whopping 768GB of unified memory in testing. However, the ongoing component shortage and sharp rise in memory prices could affect the chip’s final configuration.
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