Mac Studio may never get updated, because new Mac Pro is coming

AppleInsider

A refresh of the Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra may not happen soon or at all, because of the Mac Pro.

Mac Studio

Apple's introduction of the M2 Pro and M2 Max in January, as well as a spec-bump upgrade to the Mac mini, may not necessarily be followed by similar updates to the Mac Studio. With Apple keen to bring out an Apple Silicon Mac Pro, it is reckoned the Mac Studio's refresh with an M2 Ultra chip may be delayed, or even stopped from being released.

The New Mac Pro with Apple Silicon is expected to launch in the spring, complete with the M2 Ultra chip. However, the prospect of two Macs using M2 Ultra may be a problem for Apple, as one could cannibalize the sales of the other.

According to Mark Gurman in his "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, the Mac Pro is similar in functionality to the Mac Studio, and therefore it "wouldn't make sense" for Apple to offer both an M2 Ultra Mac Studio and an M2 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time.

"It's more likely that Apple either never updates the Mac Studio or holds off until the M3 or M4 generation," Gurman writes. By then, Apple will have an opportunity to "better differentiate" the Mac Studio from the Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro was previously expected to have an "M2 Extreme" chip, which effectively combined two M2 Ultra chips into one piece of silicon, but it was culled in December over supposed production problems.

Read on AppleInsider

pulseimages

So why release the Mac Studio in the first then? 

mikethemartian

One of the youtubers was speculating about this a week or two ago.

duhsesame

Better wait and see what the Mac Pro looks like.  Also, I don’t expect a 4-die version, and the M2-series is pretty lame in performance.

I’m betting all for the M3, though I was concerned that Apple might give up the performance on Macs.  I hope not.

edited February 2023

decoderring

Perhaps it’ll be another iMac Pro-type device To tide some people over until the new Mac Pro is released.

libertyandfree

Mac Studio seems like a product without a purpose now that the M2 Pro mini is out.  Maybe it was always a stopgap device because the MacPro with ASI was so far behind schedule. 

anonymouse

This sounds like pure speculation on Gurman's part — i.e., no based on any sourced information — particularly based primarily on the rationale that, "it wouldn't make sense."

Seems like an enormous, blundering waste of resources for Apple to have developed the Mac Studio, only to abandon it after a single generation. I think it makes more sense that Apple does something unexpected with both the Mac Pro and Mac Studio.

davebarnes

Old man yelling at cloud here.

Can I just get a 27-inch iMac?

d_2

Mac Mini
  Mx & Mx Pro

Mac Studio 
  Mx Pro & Mx Max

Mac Pro
  Mx Max & Mx Ultra

assuming the Mac Pro has all of the Studio functionality, and then some, the only reason to keep the Mac Studio is to fill in a price gap… unless the new Mac Pro has a (bare bones) starting price closer to $1999-$2499 (similar to MacBook Air and MacBook Pro price differential)

skeptical

It may or may not rain tomorrow. 

foregoneconclusion

libertyandfree said:

Mac Studio seems like a product without a purpose now that the M2 Pro mini is out.  Maybe it was always a stopgap device because the MacPro with ASI was so far behind schedule. 

M1 Max Mac Studio has better graphics performance (more GPU cores), twice the memory bandwidth, and twice the video and ProRes encode engines versus the M2 Pro Mac Mini. M1 Max Studio can also drive a higher number of external displays. 

So despite all the hype about the M2 Pro Mac Mini, it still has some obvious shortcomings. And keep in mind that the M1 Ultra Mac Studio still bludgeons everything else that's currently available from Apple. 

edited February 2023

dmbream

d_2 said:

Mac Mini
  Mx & Mx Pro

Mac Studio 
  Mx Pro & Mx Max

Mac Pro
  Mx Max & Mx Ultra

assuming the Mac Pro has all of the Studio functionality, and then some, the only reason to keep the Mac Studio is to fill in a price gap… unless the new Mac Pro has a (bare bones) starting price closer to $1999-$2499 (similar to MacBook Air and MacBook Pro price differential)

What @d_2 said. 

Would also like to see a 27”+ iMac option with Mx Pro and Max configurations and more than 16GB of RAM…

duhsesame

davebarnes said:

Old man yelling at cloud here.

Can I just get a 27-inch iMac?

Sure, you could possibly have three desktop systems running on the same chipset 😂

slow n easy

I'm glad I decided to buy the new Mac Mini now instead of waiting for a refresh of the Mac Studio. If they both came out at the same time, I may have went for the Mac Studio. I do like the extra ports on the front, but I'm not waiting on a maybe. My current setup is the 2018 Mac Mini. 

hreb

So either Apple is going to abandon the $2k price point for the desktop market (unlikely) or the next Mac Pro is going to fill in the $2k price point  (laughably unlikely).
This is a bad take.  Look for the Mac Pro to be extremely differentiated and extremely pricey.

puiz666

Mark Gurman is good at reporting things other people say. Lately, he has been posting his own thoughts and speculation. That’s… cool, I guess. But there’s almost zero reason to listen to him. This is not even a rumor. 

dennyc69

I don’t buy it, Hollywood types use Mac Pro, the  Mac Studio fills the gap for lower prices groups of people who still want pro power. This a click bait article? Don’t make stuff up 

anonconformist

The old (current) MacPro has expansion capability far exceeding what every other Apple system has, including RAM up to 1.5 TB.

Unless they cede the MacPro market that defines, it makes no sense to make the Mac Studio a one-and-done, because it isn’t remotely that expandable and can’t be made to be without making the squarish peg in the round hole mistake they made with the trashcan MacPro and stupidly over-constraining their most powerful system sold.

How big is the market for something more powerful than what is reasonably seen with the M2 Ultra for RAM? I submit Apple knows more of that than everyone else. Either they have run into problems trying to make a new Apple Silicon MacPro, or they’ve determined the market size for the MacPro isn’t large enough to justify the overhead, are both more reasonable expectations than Apple making the loved (my assessment, what are the numbers? Again, Apple knows) Mac Studio a one-and-done design, as it addresses a clear market point for price and functionality that wasn’t ever really served well by the MacPro.

rob53

pulseimages said:

So why release the Mac Studio in the first then? 

To try and pacify Mac Pro users. If I remember correctly, the Mac Studio outperformed the current Intel Mac Pro for much less money. You could build a faster Mac Pro but by the time you did, you could have purchased 2-3 Studios. Apple engineers couldn't come through with a chip(s) that would justify the Mac Pro product line--and still haven't. Mac Studio introduced in March 2022 (thought it was older than this) and now it appears the Mac Pro might be released in Spring, which would put it a year after the Studio. From other reports, the Mac Pro will use the same, oversized box as the Intel Mac Pro, which I hope isn't the final Mac Pro product. Stack two Studios on top of each other and that should be enough room for a Mac Pro with 2-4x the power of the Studio. 

Geekbench scores still put the Studio above the fastest Intel Mac Pro in single and multi-core benchmarks. Metal benchmark still gives the Ultra a score just under 100K with several faster AMD Radeon graphics cards, mainly used in the Mac Pro. 

elliots11

Seems like development of the Mac Pro has seen some issues. I would bet any delay in the M2 Studio has more to do with duration on the market of the first iteration and not wanting to outshine the new Mac Pro on release than anything else. I don’t have any inside info but I’ll bet the Studio sticks around. 

Some of it could also be market research like “let’s see what sells then do more of that.”

thadec

dennyc69 said:

I don’t buy it, Hollywood types use Mac Pro, the  Mac Studio fills the gap for lower prices groups of people who still want pro power. This a click bait article? Don’t make stuff up 

This is 15 year old stuff. "Hollywood types" switched to Linux ages ago. As dinosaurs are no longer roaming the earth, Mac Pro is most often used as a general purpose workstation that happens to run macOS. Such people have no use for a Mac Studio, which is engineered for audio, video and photo professionals and actually performs worse than similarly priced hardware for anything and everything else. If Apple is going to retain the general purpose workstation crowd, they are going to need to put out a competitive product for engineers, architects, simulators, medical etc. Or else all of those people are going to migrate to Linux workstations running AMD Threadripper and Xeon W.