Apple plans to skip the M6 Pro and M6 Max chips entirely, jumping straight to M7 Pro and M7 Max variants instead. The decision breaks a pattern Apple has maintained without exception since switching to its own silicon in 2020.
The base M6 chip is still on track to arrive inside new MacBook Pro models later in 2026. Reports indicate that it will increase memory bandwidth from 153 gigabytes per second to 200 gigabytes per second, add a new memory architecture, and feature up to 12 GPU cores, compared to the 10 in the M5.
The upgraded Neural Engine is expected to strengthen performance on AI and graphics workloads specifically.
What buyers of higher-end Macs should know
Anyone who has historically bought a MacBook Pro in the Pro or Max configuration will not have an M6 version to choose from.
Apple is routing those buyers toward the M7 generation instead, which could arrive as early as the first half of 2027, a faster follow-up than the company’s usual annual cadence. M7 Pro and M7 Max models are expected by late 2027, with an M7 Ultra following in 2028.
The M7 line is being built around on-device AI performance. Memory bandwidth is projected to reach around 240 gigabytes per second, a further step up from the M6’s already improved figures.
Apple appears to be treating the M7 as the platform where its AI ambitions fully land in Mac hardware, which is why the company opted to compress the usual timeline rather than release intermediate Pro and Max versions of the M6.
Mac Studio buyers are in a different position
While M6 Pro and Max are being skipped, Apple is still moving forward with an M5 Ultra chip destined for the Mac Studio. That chip is expected to carry around 36 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores.
For context, the current Mac Studio ships with either an M4 Max or an M3 Ultra, and Apple never released an M4 Ultra, making the skipped chip tiers less unprecedented in the Mac Studio line than they might first appear.
For professionals who rely on Mac hardware for high-resolution video editing or compute-intensive creative work, the absence of the M6 Pro and Max chips creates a real gap.
Those workflows typically lean on raw CPU and GPU throughput rather than AI acceleration, and the next available upgrade in that class will not arrive until late 2027 at the earliest. Buyers in that category face a longer wait than any previous Apple Silicon generation has required.
