Apple Mac Studio review (M2 Ultra, 2023): A better Mac for pros

Final 12 months’s Mac Studio was the super-powered Mac mini that many Apple followers have been begging for. However, for essentially the most demanding customers, it was unclear if it was price shelling out $3,999 for the high-end Mac Studio with an M1 Extremely chip, or if they need to simply look ahead to the inevitable Mac Professional refresh. Now that Apple has revamped the Mac Professional with an M2 Extremely chip, the corporate’s desktop lineup lastly has one thing for everybody.

On the most elementary stage, there’s the $599 Mac Mini. In case you want a bit extra energy, you will get that very same slim machine with an M2 Professional chip for $1,299. In the meantime, all-in-one followers have a number of iMacs to select from, beginning at $1,299 (however there, too, it is most likely price ready for an M2 spec bump).

That leaves the $1,999 Mac Studio as the perfect machine for Apple energy customers. It will be sufficient for video enhancing work, and it additionally comes customary with 32GB of RAM. (It might use greater than 512GB of storage, although.) Step as much as the $3,999 mannequin with an M2 Extremely chip, and you have got a system that may destroy nearly any process you place in entrance of it. The few skilled customers who want PCIe enlargement can now go for the M2 Extremely-equipped Mac Professional, which begins at an eye-watering $6,999.

Unexpectedly, the higher-end Mac Studio makes a lot extra sense. It has the identical uncooked energy because the Mac Professional, a ton of ports, and it will not take up a lot room in your desk. What appeared like a curiosity final 12 months, now seems like an amazing worth for energy customers. Humorous how that works, is not it? (Apple reportedly shelved plans for an much more highly effective M2 chip, which might have supplied double the facility of the M2 Extremely, in line with Bloomberg.)

The bottom Mac Studio is now outfitted with an M2 Max chip, that includes a 12-core CPU (with eight efficiency and 4 effectivity cores) and a 30-core GPU, in addition to 32GB of RAM. In comparison with final 12 months’s M1 Max, the brand new chip has two extra effectivity cores and 6 further GPU cores. What’s most notable is the extra improve choices: You’ll be able to configure the M2 Max chip with a 38-core GPU and 96GB of RAM (beforehand you have been capped at 32GB of reminiscence).

Step as much as the M2 Extremely and also you successfully get two M2 Max chips: It begins with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU and 64GB of reminiscence. If you wish to really push your system (and pockets) to the restrict, the M2 Extremely will also be configured with a 76-core GPU and 192GB of RAM. With all that energy, who wants a full-sized PC tower?

And actually, that is what I saved asking myself as I examined our overview unit, which was outfitted with an M2 Extremely and 192GB of RAM. The Mac Studio is so ridiculously overpowered, solely essentially the most demanding customers would want the Mac Professional’s PCIe enlargement. For the reason that M2 chips characteristic unified reminiscence built-in alongside the CPU and GPU, there is no approach so as to add further RAM down the road, which was once one more reason to get the Mac Professional. A minimum of you possibly can stuff the Mac Studio to the gills with RAM, for those who want it.

Very like the M2 Max-powered 14-inch MacBook Professional, Apple’s newest chips ship noticeable efficiency will increase over the M1 technology in nearly each benchmark. However it’s additionally not important sufficient to expire and exchange an M1 system. As an alternative, the brand new Mac Studio is an much more tempting machine for Mac customers nonetheless trucking together with Intel processors, even for some Mac Professional house owners.

Within the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark, the Mac Studio scored larger than any system we have examined this 12 months. However actually, that is not a shock – even final 12 months’s M1 Extremely Mac Studio scored larger than the Razer Blade 16, which options Intel’s quickest cell Thirteenth-gen chip. Apple doesn’t at all times come out forward: The Blade 16 beat the Mac Studio within the Geekbench 5 Compute benchmark, which you’ll be able to chalk as much as the NVIDIA RTX 4090 below the hood. Nonetheless, the Mac Studio’s multithreaded Cinebench R23 rating (a take a look at that principally measures CPU efficiency) was greater than double the Blade 16’s.

The brand new Mac Studio transcoded a 4K video file to 1080p utilizing Handbrake in 21 seconds, three seconds sooner than final 12 months’s M1 Extremely mannequin. That very same job took the Razer Blade 16, the quickest PC we have seen this 12 months, 26 seconds to finish. Scale that saved time as much as a characteristic size venture, or encoding jobs you will must run a number of occasions a day, and the Mac Studio looks like a no brainer improve for some creatives.

Years in the past, some professionals would purchase the Mac Professional for its sheer efficiency, whereas the inner enlargement potentialities have been extra of an afterthought. The Mac Studio is a system made for them. And now, because of Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, exterior storage choices are quick sufficient to take care of the calls for of a video manufacturing store.