Apple last week changed the way you buy a Mac online, removing the previous lineup of customizable pre-configured options and instead putting you straight into configuring your spec from scratch.
While at first glance this seems a somewhat strange thing to do, arguably making it a little more complicated for a non-tech buyer to choose their Mac, the change could provide support for a theory that Apple will allow you to separate CPU and GPU options when buying an M5 Pro or Max Mac …
The new Mac configurator
You’ve always been able to configure the spec of your Mac from a wide range of options. However, prior to last week, Apple would begin the purchase flow by offering you a number of standard configurations.
Previously when you clicked the “Buy” button, Apple’s Online Store would first take you to a landing page. On this landing page, you’d see a range of prebuilt options with various chip, RAM, and storage options. You’d choose the starting configuration by clicking “Select” and could then fine-tune your machine to your exact preference or proceed with the default configuration.
I strongly suspect that for the MacBook Air at least, the majority of people simply chose one of the pre-configured options and didn’t make any adjustments to the spec.
Now, however, you have to make every decision yourself, starting with the screen size and proceeding down to the pre-installed software. That would seem a retrograde step in Apple’s approach to simplicity.
This may be the reason why
While you can choose the processor for your machine, you are stuck with Apple’s fixed combinations of CPU and GPU cores. That’s because the two of them are tightly integrated in an approach known as a System-on-a-Chip (SoC). Essentially what would have been completely separate chips are integrated into a single, tightly-integrated unit containing circuitry for both.
For the upcoming M5 Pro and Max chips, however, Apple is reportedly switching to a new chip packaging process that allows greater flexibility.
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