134 Billion Transistors: The Might of Apple’s M2 Ultra Uncovered

Apple’s M2 Ultra chip, a veritable titan amongst the Apple Silicon line-up, consists of two interconnected M2 Max chips, bringing its total transistor count to an impressive 134 billion. With a ceiling of 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and 32 neural network engine cores, this chip also incorporates proprietary hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, and ProRes encoding and decoding engines. Its maximum configured memory stands at a staggering 192GB. The allure of such an overwhelming configuration inevitably elicits curiosity about its true form. According to a report by Wccftech, Twitter user @techanalye1 has unveiled the M2 Ultra.

The M2 Ultra exposed by the blogger is installed on a Mac Studio. Apple has applied thermal grease solely in the center of the top cover, covering the M2 Ultra. Upon removal of the cover, it becomes apparent that Apple has not adopted a soldered design. Instead, thermal grease filling persists between the M2 Ultra, DRAM particles, and the top cover. Consequently, all components appear unscathed. This cooling solution suggests that the M2 Ultra’s power consumption might not be as high as assumed.

The photograph also reveals an Intel Xeon W9-3495X, the most formidable processor in the Intel Xeon W-3400 series. It is equipped with 56 cores and 112 threads, boasting a turbo frequency up to 4.8GHz, an L3 capacity of 105MB, and a TDP reaching 350W. The image reveals that despite the considerable size of the Xeon W9-3495X, the M2 Ultra seems to outdo it in terms of width, a result of its incorporating memory on top.

In his tweet, @techanalye1 announced that a more in-depth disassembly of both the W9-3495X and the M2 Ultra is forthcoming next week.