Exclusive | Apple’s Special Projects Group Is Testing Insane Processors, Some Are Too Hot to Handle

Since the company first introduced them in June 2020, Apple Silicon chips have blown everyone’s mind away. The M1 is a fast chip that needs no cooling and provides an extraordinary battery life thanks to its excellent power efficiency. Combined with a breakthrough performance, it makes the M1 MacBook Air the best $999 laptop on the market. I have it, and I love it. It is worth every penny.

One year later, in October of 2021, Apple presented the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the 14-inch and 16-MacBook Pros. These have up to 10 CPU cores and 32 GPU cores. They are powerful computers with excellent battery life, many ports, and an incredible display. However, this is nothing compared to what Apple is currently working on.

Apple has something called the SPG (Special Projects Group). These guys are responsible for testing things that the company won’t release anytime soon but need to be tested anyways. Well, they have been testing some impressive processors lately, and I’m going to tell you all about them. So prepare for this, because it will certainly blow your mind away.

The first and most known is a 32 core CPU and 128 core GPU chip. This will apparently be featured in the Apple Silicon Mac Pro scheduled for late 2022.

So far, tests on this one are doing fine. You won’t see this monster in a laptop because it does get quite hot, and it’s not exactly small.

If you thought the $50,000 Mac Pro would never be defeated, wait until you see what this chip is capable of. I don’t expect it to be cheaper than its predecessor, but it’ll definitely be better.

Do you know what’s funny about this? That this isn’t the fastest processor that Apple is working on. Let me tell you.

First, I want to clarify that none of these prototypes I am going to tell you about will see the day of light any time soon, and they are being tested for mere internal development reasons.

As far as I know, there are currently two more processor configurations in the works: a 64 core CPU chip and a 128 core CPU chip. I have also been told configurations of up to 512 GPU cores are being tested, too.

Let us start with the first one—64 core CPU. Engineers and other employees find this one “feasible.” It doesn’t get a lot hotter than the 32 core CPU, doesn’t require a gigantic cooler, and there is the market share for it. It will definitely be costly, though.

This configuration is tested among 64, 128, and 256 GPU cores. The first two don’t give a lot of trouble, and however, the third one needs more work to be done. It does get quite hot, and it crashes all the time.

You have to consider that we would be talking about probably the best graphics machine in the world at a consumer level, so all these problems are justified; it isn’t something easy to work on. Apple has the time and the resources to make it work; this won’t be on the market until 2024 at the earliest.

Then we have the 128 core CPU processor. After consulting about it with my sources, it does look like Apple will abandon this project. It’s all problems, and nothing seems to work; it crashes all the time and needs a lot of cooling that wouldn’t fit inside a Mac Pro. I don’t believe Apple will continue to spend money on this. The Cupertino-based company could resume the project once 2nm transistors are readily available. But that’s just my opinion. If I receive more information on that, I’ll let you know.

512 core GPU configurations are also being tested, although it does look like Apple is having a hard time making them work properly. It’s not as bad as the case with the 128 core CPU chip, but it is not good either.

I bet that the company will continue to work on this, but engineers will eventually discard it because its cost is extremely high and wouldn’t be profitable for Apple. It has its market share, but it is so tiny that it doesn’t make sense to mass-produce it.

Apart from the 32 CPU/128 GPU cores processor I have told you about, don’t expect these even to be unveiled until 2024 at best.

I hope you found this article helpful. Let me know what you think and if you would be interested in these chips in the comments. As always, have a fantastic day!

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]