Apple's Mac Studio launches with new M1 Ultra chip in a compact package

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited March 2022
Apple has launched the Mac Studio, a professional-level Apple Silicon Mac that offers high performance in a package about twice the size of a Mac mini.

Apple Mac Studio
Apple Mac Studio


Slotting into the Mac lineup between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro, the Mac Studio is a desktop Mac that sits between the two, both in size and in performance. Aimed at professional users, the Mac Studio promises high-level performance using Apple Silicon, but in a monitor-less desktop form.





Officially, it is 7.7 inches wide and deep, and 3.7 inches tall. This is roughly the same footprint as a Mac mini, and twice as tall.

The front of the Mac Studio has two USB-C or Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SDXC card reader.
The front of the Mac Studio has two USB-C or Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SDXC card reader.


Apple takes advantage of the height to include a system of double-sided blowers for cooling, pushing air out through over 4,000 perforations at the back. Apple claims the cooling system will still keep the Mac Studio quiet under heavy workloads.

At the front is an SDXC slot, along with a pair of USB-C ports for the M1 Max version, Thunderbolt 4 for the M1 Ultra. To the back are four Thunderbolt 4 ports, along with 10 Gigabit Ethernet, two USB-Type A, HDMI, and a headphone jack. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 is also included.

The back of the Mac Studio has the rest of the ports, and over 4,000 perforations for cooling.
The back of the Mac Studio has the rest of the ports, and over 4,000 perforations for cooling.


It also benefits from the M1 Max and M1 Ultra and the included Media Engine for encoding and decoding video, which will make the Mac Studio attractive to creative professionals. At its highest configuration, the M1 Ultra version will provide a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core Neural Engine.

The M1 Max variant can be ordered with up to 64GB of Universal Memory, while the M1 Ultra can be configured with up to 128GB.

In Apple's benchmark claims, the Mac Studio with M1 Max has up to 50% more CPU performance than a Mac Pro with a 16-core Xeon processor, as well as graphics performance over 3 times faster than a Mac Pro with its most popular graphics card. For transcoding video, it's up to 3.7 times faster than the 16-core Mac Pro.

The M1 Ultra version boosts the CPU performance to 90% faster than the same 16-core Xeon Mac Pro processor and up to 80% faster graphics performance than the fastest available Mac graphics card. For transcoding video, it's up to 5.6 times faster than the 28-core Mac Pro.

Storage is also impressively high, with a maximum 8TB of capacity available, as well as transfers at up to 7.4GB/s.

Video support runs to a maximum of four Pro Display XDRs plus a 4K TV, totaling close to 90 million pixels driven by the device.

The Mac Studio starts from $1,999 with M1 Max, $3,999 with M1 Ultra. It is open to preorders from Tuesday, and available from March 18.

This story is breaking. Update frequently for the most recent information

Read on AppleInsider
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 155
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,020member
    Looks like Apple just ate Alder Lake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They even hinted at a revised Mac Pro. I cannot even imagine. 
    dk49ravnorodomwilliamlondonMisterKitcgWerksargonautchiaseanjMplsPericthehalfbee
  • Reply 2 of 155
    At the end when he said we have one more but that’s for another day and said the Mac Pro… so this studio isn’t going to be their biggest powerhouse but merely a stepping stone.. What the hell will the new Mac Pro be packed with??
    JinTechdk49ravnorodomwilliamlondonjas99davenMisterKitJapheytdknoxmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 3 of 155
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,020member
    At the end when he said we have one more but that’s for another day and said the Mac Pro… so this studio isn’t going to be their biggest powerhouse but merely a stepping stone.. What the hell will the new Mac Pro be packed with??
    My thoughts exactly!
    williamlondonjas99MisterKitwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 155
    So... there won't be a 27" iMac at all??  :o
    edited March 2022 jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 155
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Okay, so there were two statements made that sealed the fate of the larger iMac. The first was that the Mac Studio and Studio display were the perfect for 27” iMac users. The second statement was at the very end when he said there was only one Mac left to transition, the Mac Pro.

    So, there will be no iMac Pro, no iMac with a larger screen. The 24” iMac is it. The Mac Studio is the future and I’m okay with that.


    edited March 2022 williamlondonjas99MisterKitmobirdJapheyblastdoortdknoxaderuttermuthuk_vanalingamirwinmaurice
  • Reply 6 of 155
    dk49dk49 Posts: 267member
    At the end when he said we have one more but that’s for another day and said the Mac Pro… so this studio isn’t going to be their biggest powerhouse but merely a stepping stone.. What the hell will the new Mac Pro be packed with??

    2 x M1 Ultra or 4 x M1 Ultra
    forgot usernameaderutterentropyscgWerksargonautjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 155
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,020member
    dk49 said:
    At the end when he said we have one more but that’s for another day and said the Mac Pro… so this studio isn’t going to be their biggest powerhouse but merely a stepping stone.. What the hell will the new Mac Pro be packed with??

    2 x M1 Ultra or 4 x M1 Ultra
    By this rate, we will see the new Mac Pro by WWDC. 
    forgot usernamewatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 155
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    So... there won't be a 27" iMac at all??  :o
    I was wondering about that — I think they killed it in favor of the Studio.
    williamlondonforgot usernametdknoxargonautseanjwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 155
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    The G4 Cube mated with the Mac Pro Trash Can. End of snark, though. It's a nice system.
    edited March 2022 jas99mwhiteforgot usernamecgWerksargonautseanjwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 155
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    At the end when he said we have one more but that’s for another day and said the Mac Pro… so this studio isn’t going to be their biggest powerhouse but merely a stepping stone.. What the hell will the new Mac Pro be packed with??
    PCIe expansion, DIMM slots, support for ECC memory, and maybe 4 M1 Maxes.
    edited March 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 155
    So... there won't be a 27" iMac at all??  :o
    I was wondering about that — I think they killed it in favor of the Studio.
    I'm not 100% sure what I feel about that. I've had 27" iMacs for the last, er, *counts fingers*, 10 or so years and was waiting for the new one.


    irwinmauricemaclin3JWSCMacCatHatterjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 155
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    They put shit on the front. I can’t believe it. They said it couldn't be done!

    My next Mac, for sure. This covers all the pro users who have been buying burly iMacs for the last 10 years. I’m one of these. Those for whom a Mac Pro is overkill, but wish to avoid buying a new monitor with every update to the computing device. 

    I’m sure there will be complaints about the lack of internal expansion. I’m choosing to look at the glass overflowing with performance out-of-the-box. They make Mac Pro for the tinkerers. This one is for us. The non-tinkering pros. Not a contradiction in terms, Apple even made us our own special Mac.  
    edited March 2022 williamlondonjas99fastasleep80s_Apple_Guyforgot usernamebonobobtmaycgWerksargonautseanj
  • Reply 13 of 155
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member

    The Mac Studio starts from $1,999 with M1 Max, $3,999 with M1 Ultra.
    That UltraFusion interconnect must cost a pretty penny to make sense of those prices.
    forgot usernameentropysargonautVermelho
  • Reply 14 of 155
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    So... there won't be a 27" iMac at all??  :o

    That’s what I got out of it… This is replacing the larger iMac.

    Makes me wonder if the iMac and mini will now get an M1 Pro option?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 155
    What's missing?
    No upgradeability. At all. None. Zero. Nada.
    No way to upgrade the RAM, SSD or any other components.
    What you get is what you get. Forever. You are welcome.
    Not even a M.2 slot for when the built in SSD seems very slow and small two years from now.

    Those GPU speed/power charts were missing the name of the discrete GPUs they used for comparison. The charts shown when the M1 Pro and Max when the MacBook Pro was released ended up being very misleading. How exactly does the M1 Ultra stack up to a RTX 3090 when ray tracing in Blender? Who knows? Guess we have to wait for a real review to find out. We do know that that the M1 Max hash rate is around 10.7 MH/s while a 3090 gets 121 MH/s so even if the M1 Ultra is twice as fast, it is still 1/6th the speed of the 3090.
    edited March 2022 forgot usernameMittymaclin3argonaut
  • Reply 16 of 155
    ravnorodomravnorodom Posts: 692member
    Nice. Love it. Exactly what I am looking for.... the headless iMac. I can't believe it blows current Intel MacPro out of the water. Watch out, Intel, for the up coming MacPro which I predict it will be Dual or 4x M1 Ultra or the new M2 chip. First time Mac really exceeds top of the line PC hardware.
    williamlondonblastdoorforgot usernameargonautradarthekatwatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 155
    RIP 27" iMac. 
    End of an era. 
    Back to boxes and cables. 
    Hey, wanna steal my life? Grab this little box off my desk. 
    StationGreyboboliciousforgot usernameirwinmauricemaclin3argonautjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 155
    lkrupp said:
    Okay, so there were two statements made that sealed the fate of the larger iMac. The first was that the Mac Studio and Studio display were the perfect for 27” iMac users. The second statement was at the very end when he said there was only one Mac left to tradition, the Mac Pro.

    So, there will be no iMac Pro, no iMac with a larger screen. The 24” iMac is it. The Mac Studio is the future and I’m okay with that.
    I think you can put a fork in the iMac Pro, but not a 27" or larger iMac. Apple could always update the iMac to 27" and M1 Pro/M1 Max/M2 at a later date. 
    edited March 2022 Vermelhojony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 155
    JinTech said:
    Looks like Apple just ate Alder Lake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They even hinted at a revised Mac Pro. I cannot even imagine. 
    Ah ... no. With a dual CPU architecture and $4000 entry level price, this is competing with the 26 core Xeon chips, not the 12th gen Core i9. 
    Hrebmaclin3
  • Reply 20 of 155
    What's missing?
    No upgradeability. At all. None. Zero. Nada.
    No way to upgrade the RAM, SSD or any other components.
    What you get is what you get. Forever. You are welcome.
    Not even a M.2 slot for when the built in SSD seems very slow and small two years from now.

    Those GPU speed/power charts were missing the name of the discrete GPUs they used for comparison. The charts shown when the M1 Pro and Max when the MacBook Pro was released ended up being very misleading. How exactly does the M1 Ultra stack up to a RTX 3090 when ray tracing in Blender? Who knows? Guess we have to wait for a real review to find out. We do know that that the M1 Max hash rate is around 10.7 MH/s while a 3090 gets 121 MH/s so even if the M1 Ultra is twice as fast, it is still 1/6th the speed of the 3090.
    Exactly, instead of an all-in-one package with a 27" iMac, they release this overpriced monitor and a cpu with no upgradeability in a box. Cool. Cool. 
    williamlondonlkruppOutdoorAppDeveloperentropysmaclin3MacCatHatter
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