The Mac Studio is Apple’s most powerful customized silicon-based Mac, supplying intense overall performance and a wide range of ports in a modular, desktop form factor. The Mac Studio begins at $1,999 and used to be released alongside the $1,599 Studio Display.
The Mac Studio is the latest Mac in Apple’s lineup and is very early in its product cycle. Since it is a completely new Mac product line and there have been no previous models, we have no indication of how lengthy Apple typically waits to update it. Now is the very right time to purchase the Mac Studio and clients ought to no longer wait for a new model to launch.
While the Mac Studio is now Apple’s most effective Mac, for an Intel-based desktop machine with an interchangeable, modular design with more ports, there is the Mac Pro, which begins at $5,999. On the different hand, if the Mac Studio is out of your price range however you nevertheless choose a comparable Apple silicon-based desktop Mac, there is the entry-level Mac mini, which begins at just $699.
What About Mac Studio Need To know
The Mac Studio is Apple’s newest Mac product line, positioned as a move between a Mac mini and a Mac Pro, as nicely as an attainable alternative for the now-discontinued 27-inch iMac. Designed to seem to be like a taller model of a Mac mini, the Mac Studio is aimed at “studio” professionals, as the title suggests, and it uses Apple’s most powerful M-series chips.
Apple says the Mac Studio is supposed to supply “outrageous performance, extensive connectivity, and new capabilities” in an excellent compact form, transforming any space into a “studio.”
Priced beginning at $1,999, the extra low-cost entry-level model of the Mac Studio is outfitted with an Apple M1 Max chip that features a 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU (upgradeable to 32-core), 16-core Neural Engine, Media Engine, 400GB/s memory bandwidth, and up to 64GB Unified Memory. The extra highly-priced $3,999 model is outfitted with an all-new M1 Ultra chip.
The M1 Ultra chip is in actuality two M1 Max chips related collectively on a single die and in a position to perform as one chip, which Apple calls UltraFusion architecture. It points a 20-core CPU and a 48-core GPU (upgradeable to 64-core), alongside a 32-core Neural Engine, 800GB/s memory bandwidth, up to 128GB Unified Memory, and a Media Engine it truly is twice as fast.
According to Apple, the M1 Ultra’s CPU is up to 3.8x faster than the highest-end Intel Core i9 iMac (which has now been discontinued), and up to 60 % faster than the 28-core Mac Pro with Intel Xeon W processor. As for the GPU, the M1 Ultra is 4.5x quicker than the 27-inch iMac and 80 percent faster than the highest-end Mac Pro with AMD Radeon Pro W6900X graphics.
The M1 Ultra supports playback of up to 18 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video, which Apple says no different private computer in the world is in a position to do, plus it provides overall performance on par with top-of-the-line PC chips and graphics cards at a fraction of the power.
Designed to appear like a taller model of the Mac mini, the Mac Studio features a square-shaped 7.7-inch all-aluminum enclosure it is 3.7-inches high. The dimension is supposed to enable it to fit “perfectly” under most displays on the market.
The Mac Studio is designed for quiet operation, with a special thermal architecture that pulls air in via the airflow channels on the bottom the use of double-sided blowers and pushes it out thru extra perforations on the back of the chassis.
There are four Thunderbolt 4 ports at the return of the Mac Studio, alongside a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones. At the front, the M1 Max Mac Studio has an extra two USB-C ports and an SDXC card slot, whilst the M1 Ultra has two Thunderbolt 4 ports and an identical card slot.
The Mac Studio supports up to 4 6K Pro Display XDRs alongside one 4K display over HDMI. The M1 Max model comes with a 512GB SSD and the M1 Ultra mannequin comes with a 1TB SSD, however, both are configurable with up to 8TB of SSD storage area with reading speeds up to 7.4GB/s
As for wi-fi connectivity, the Mac Studio has Wi-Fi 6 for the fastest Wi-Fi speeds, and it supports Bluetooth 5.0.
The Mac Studio is designed to be paired with Apple’s matching $1,599 Studio Display, a 27-inch 5K resolution display that has a built-in 12-megapixel camera with Center Stage support, as properly as an extraordinary microphone and speaker arrays.
Apple has the Mac Studio reachable for buy now, though supplies are tight following the March 18 launch.
where can you buy it
The Mac Studio can be purchased from the Apple website. The M1 Max version is priced at $1,999, and the M1 Ultra version is priced at $3,999, with additional upgrade options available
Performance
While the Mac Studio resembles a large Mac mini, it is way extra powerful. The pc can be configured with the equal M1 Max chip accessible for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, or the new M1 Ultra chip, which points to a 20-core CPU, up to a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core Neural Engine. With the M1 Ultra chip, the Mac Studio has faster overall performance than a 28-core Mac Pro tower released in December 2019.
Specifically, the Mac Studio has earned a multi-core score of around 23,500 to 24,000 in many Geekbench 5 results, compared to a common multi-core rating of 19,956 for the Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon W processor. This is particularly incredible given that the Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip begins at $3,999, whilst a Mac Pro tower configured with a 28-core processor is over three times greater pricey at $12,999.
What about Design
The Mac Studio takes design cues from both the Mac mini and the Mac Pro with an all-aluminum enclosure and unique thermal design. It uses the same “squircle” shape as the Mac mini, with a square-shaped design that has rounded corners.
It is essentially a whole lot taller model of the Mac mini, measuring 3.7 inches tall and 7.7 inches huge at every side. Apple says that it is sized to fit perfectly below most displays, which includes the Studio Display that is being sold alongside it.
As for weight, the M1 Max model weighs 5.9 pounds, while the M1 Ultra model weighs 7.9 pounds. The extra weight in the M1 Ultra model is due to a difference in thermal needs. The M1 Max model has an aluminum heatsink while the M1 Ultra version has a larger copper thermal module.
To dissipate heat and allow for quiet operation, the Mac Studio has a series of airflow channels at the back and at the bottom. The machine pulls in air from the bottom and pushes it out through the more than 4,000 perforations at the back and bottom of the chassis to cool the internal components.
Ports
There is a whole of 12 ports on the front and return of the Mac Studio. The back features 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack that supports high-impedance headphones. There is additionally a built-in speaker to go alongside the headphone jack.
The front of the M1 Max Mac Studio features an additional two USB-C ports along with an SDXC card slot, while the front of the M1 Ultra Mac Studio includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports and the SDXC card slot.
Up to four 6K Pro Display XDRs and one 4K TV or 4K display can be connected to the Mac Studio.
M1 Max vs M1 Ultra Chips
The Mac Studio can be purchased with either M1 Max or M1 Ultra chips. The M1 Max is the same chip that was first introduced in the MacBook Pro, while the M1 Ultra is essentially two M1 Max chips working together in tandem to form a single chip for double the performance of the M1 Max. Apple uses UltraFusion, a custom-built packaging architecture, for the M1 Ultra.
The M1 Max chip features a 10-core CPU with eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, while the M1 Ultra chip features a 20-core CPU with 16 high-performance cores and 4 high-efficiency cores. Apple says that the M1 Max offers 2.5x faster performance than the Core i9 chip in the now-discontinued 27-inch iMac, while the M1 Ultra offers 3.8x faster CPU performance.
The M1 Ultra is in fact faster than the 28-core Intel Mac Pro, earning a single-core score of 1793 and a multi-core score of 24055 in a Geekbench 5 benchmark. Comparatively, the highest-end Mac Pro earned a single-core score of 1152 and a multi-core score of 19951.
Apple says the M1 Ultra is able to provide 90 % higher overall performance than the fastest 16-core PC CPU inside the identical power envelope, and it can supply the PC chip’s height overall performance using 100W much less power.
It provides comparable overall performance to “one of the most popular discrete GPUs” whilst using 1/3 as lots power, and it gives faster overall performance than the highest give up discrete GPU using 200W much less power.
GPU
There are multiple GPU configurations for the M1 Max and M1 Ultra. The base Mac Studio with M1 Max features a 24-core GPU but can be upgraded to a 32-core GPU.
The base M1 Ultra chip features a 48-core GPU, but it can be upgraded to a 64-core GPU.
Apple’s M1 Max chip offers 3.4x faster GPU performance than the 27-inch Core i9 iMac, and the M1 Ultra offers up to 4.5x faster GPU performance.
the M1 Ultra GPU is 80 %faster than the highest-end Radeon Pro W6900X graphics card used in the Mac Pro.
Memory
The M1 Max Mac Studio can be upgraded to 64GB unified memory and 400GB/s memory bandwidth, whilst the M1 Ultra Mac Studio helps up to 128GB unified reminiscence and 800GB/s memory bandwidth.
Engine
The M1 Max features a 16-core Neural Engine, and the M1 Ultra has a 32-core Neural Engine. The 32-core Neural Engine can whole up to 22 trillion operations per 2nd for machine learning tasks.
Media
The Media Engine in the M1 Max and M1 Ultra gives devoted acceleration for the ProRes video codec, alongside video encode/decode engines and a hardware-accelerated assist for H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW.
The M1 Max has a video decode engine, two videos encode engines, and two ProRes encode and decode engines, whilst the M1 Ultra has double that. The M1 Ultra can play up to 18 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video, whilst the M1 Max helps up to nine.
Storage
Both the M1 Max and M1 Ultra Mac Studio devices support up to 8TB of SSD storage with reading speeds up to 7.4GB/s. The M1 Max Mac Studio comes with a 512GB SSD by default, while the base M1 Ultra Mac Studio ships with a 1TB SSD.
Connectivity
The Mac Studio models support 802.11ax WiFi 6 connectivity and Bluetooth 5.0, the latest WiFi and Bluetooth protocols. There is no WiFi 6E support, which adds a 6GHz band to the WiFi 6 standard.
The Price
There are two base Mac Studio configurations available from Apple, one with an M1 Max chip and one with an M1 Ultra chip.
- $1,999 – M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. 32GB unified memory, 512GB SSD, and two front USB-C ports.
- $3,999 – M1 Ultra chip with 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine. 64GB unified memory, 1TB SSD, and two front Thunderbolt 4 ports.
Mac Studio Specification
Processor
- M1 Max w/ 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine – +$200
- M1 Ultra w/ 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine – +$1,400
- M1 Ultra w/ 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine – +$2,400
Memory
- 64GB unified memory – +$400
SSD
- 1TB SSD – +$200
- 2TB SSD – +$600
- 4TB SSD – +$1,200
- 8TB SSD – +$2,400
Higher-end Mac Studio Upgrade Options
Processor
- M1 Ultra w/ 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine – +$1,000
Memory
- 128GB unified memory – +$800
SSD
- 2TB SSD – +$400
- 4TB SSD – +$1,000
- 8TB SSD – +$2,200
Studio Display
Apple is selling the Mac Studio alongside the Studio Display, a 27-inch 5K display it’s supposed to be used with it. The Studio Display is well suited with different Macs and iPads, however, it was once designed to match the Mac Studio.
The Studio Display features a built-in A13 chip that powers a 12-megapixel Ultra-Wide camera with Center Stage and a six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio, plus it consists of a studio-quality three-microphone array and a tilt and top adjustable stand option. More data on the Studio Display can be discovered in our dedicated roundup.
