M7 Ultra: up to 1.5 TB memory
According to the latest Power On newsletter by Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing the M7 Ultra chip with support for up to 1.5 TB of unified memory. This would mean Apple Silicon finally matches the highest RAM configuration available in the most powerful Intel Mac Pro from 2019.
RAM capacity in Apple Silicon Macs has always been limited because Apple solders RAM directly onto the same substrate as the processor – which allows extremely high transfer speeds and unified memory. However, this also restricts memory capacity to the size of the chipset.
According to Gurman, Apple is now preparing an M7 Ultra configuration with 1.5 TB of RAM – roughly double that of the planned M5 Ultra. Whether it will ultimately release this configuration depends on the state of the industry, as the global memory chip shortage is causing unavailability and price increases.
Current situation
This year, Apple discontinued production of the 512 GB and 256 GB configurations for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, so the highest option remains 96 GB. If you buy the M4 Max, you can configure up to 128 GB. Later this year, Apple will introduce the M5 Ultra with support for up to 768 GB.
At Apple's current RAM prices (roughly $25 per gigabyte), upgrading from the base 128 GB configuration to 1.5 TB would cost over $35,000.