No one would ever accuse the present M2 Professional MacBook Professional of being sluggish, however that does not imply that there is not room for enchancment. A brand new report goals to shed some gentle on what that enchancment may appear to be.

The M2 Professional already beats on the coronary heart of what’s in all probability the very best Mac for creatives who need not go the entire hog for the M2 Max, but it surely’s mentioned that Apple is already testing what comes subsequent — and it has extra cores than ever earlier than.

What number of extra cores? Solely a pair, however that is higher than none, proper? As for when the chip will debut, that is one other story solely.

Extra cores, extra ready.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, writing in his weekly Energy On e-newsletter (opens in new tab), experiences that App Retailer entries shared with him present that Apple is already testing the brand new chip inside a MacBook Professional operating a beta model of macOS 14. That chip has 12 CPU cores, up from the earlier 10, in addition to 18 GPU cores — once more, a rise of two of the M2 Professional.

Gurman additionally believes that the brand new M3 Professional may have an higher restrict of 36GB of reminiscence based mostly on the machine that’s now being examined.

Apparently, the 2 additional CPU cores are of the power-efficient selection, that means that they’re going to be used when the MacBook Professional is not being tasked absolutely.

That is additionally considered the bottom mannequin as properly, suggesting that there could possibly be greater specced M3 Professional for individuals who need just a little additional horsepower with out going to the M3 Max. That chip is anticipated to supply as much as 14 CPU cores and as many as 40 graphics cores, making it a powerhouse in each sense of the phrase.

All of this shall be made attainable by a brand new 3nm manufacturing course of, whereas a launch window of “subsequent yr” is all now we have to go on for now. Macs operating the usual M3 chip might arrive later in 2023, nonetheless.

All of this comes as one other M2-powered Mac is on the horizon. Apple is anticipated to announce the 15-inch MacBook Air at WWDC in June with the M2 chip making one other look there. There had been some rumors that it might use the primary M3 chip – however that now is not considered the case in spite of everything.