Apple on Wednesday unveiled a major update to the Mac Studio, the first for the workstation desktop Mac in nearly two years. While the Mac Studio still features M-series Max and Ultra chips, Apple this time decided to go with what appears to be a generational split between the two processors.
The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M4 Max chip that has a 14-core CPU (10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), a 32-core GPU, 36GB of unified memory (410GBps memory bandwidth), a 16-core Neural Engine, and a 512GB SSD. Customization options are available that boost the M4 Max to a 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, up to 128GB of RAM, and up to an 8TB SSD. Those are the same specs Apple offers with the high-end MacBook Pro models
The higher-end Mac Studio standard configuration includes an M3 Ultra chip with a 28-core CPU (10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), 60-core GPU, 96GB of unified memory (819GBps memory bandwidth), a 32-core Neural Engine, and a 1TB SSD. Priced at $3,999, the M3 Ultra has options for a 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 512GB of RAM, and a 16TB SSD. That’s essentially two M3 Maxes fused together using Apple’s UltraFusion packaging architecture.
Of note between the two M-series chips is what appears to be generational mixing. Instead of an M4 Ultra, Apple decided to go with an M3 Ultra. Apple has not commented on why it did not go with an M4 Ultra chip, but describes the M3 Ultra as “the highest-performing chip it has ever created, offering the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac, double the Neural Engine cores, and the most unified memory ever in a personal computer.”
It’s possible Apple is saving the M4 Ultra for the Mac Pro, which is rumored to get an update this year, but the M4 Ultra specifically has not been a topic of the rumor mill. Last November, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman briefly mentioned that the Mac Pro could get a chip with a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU, but those specs match both the Studio’s maxed-out M3 Ultra chip and a potential M4 Ultra.
Apple did not change the port configuration for the new Mac Studio, but the Thunderbolt ports have been upgraded to Thunderbolt 5, which offers up to 120Gbps throughput.
Apple
What does it mean for performance? Apple doesn’t provide a comparison between the M4 Max and the M3 Ultra, instead citing the boost from previous generations (the M3 Ultra versus the M2 Ultra and M1 Ultra, for example). But we can get an idea of what to expect from past benchmarks. Based on Macworld’s testing, the M4 Max is Apple’s fastest chip. But the results show that the M2 Ultra is about 10 percent faster than the M3 Max, while the M1 Ultra offers a 17 percent boost over the M2 Max. So the M3 Ultra will surely take the crown as the fastest chip–but not by a whole lot.
The Mac Studio is available for preorder now, with shipments starting on March 12.
