Let’s start with the main one: Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra This is the best professional equipment you can buy. For people like me who create video, audio and text content, this is a real dream. It’s too powerful, small, quiet, easy to transport and takes up little desktop space. I don’t have to deal with a huge tower full of cables and noisy fans to keep its components at operating temperature, but I get a heck of a lot of power.
Released in 2022, this was the machine we begged Apple to release. Many of us don’t need a bulky machine like a Mac Pro, but a Mac mini or iMac wasn’t enough. This half way was the ideal we both hoped for.
The Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra retains its shape and appearance, and it also supports ports in almost every aspect. In fact, if I put a Mac Studio M1 next to a Mac Studio M2, it’s impossible to tell them apart. So, everything I mentioned about its exterior design in my review of last year’s model, that’s it.
So let’s get to what’s really important about this machine: its massive power with the new M2 Ultra, a chip that includes test hardware sent by Apple. Together with 192 GB of unified RAM and 2 TB HDD. A real wild animal that eats absolutely everything that I put to it.
Mac Studio with M2 Ultra: Incredible Power
The new Apple M2 Ultra chip is a wild beast. I’m not exaggerating. In fact, it’s the same one that includes the $6,999 Mac Pro or €8,399 Mac Pro. The only difference between the two machines is that one supports PCI expansion while Mac Studio does not.
There are 24 cores inside, 16 high performance and 8 efficient. 60-core GPU and 32 cores for the neural engine. In addition, it has a bandwidth of 800 GB per second for memory access.
For those who need even more graphics power, the M2 Ultra GPU can be configured with up to 76 cores. These are such large numbers that it is difficult to understand them. What am I doing with such power? That’s why Mac Studio is aimed at professionals who need all those cores to load and run applications as quickly as possible.
But what about M2 Max? There is news about this as well. It’s a different Apple chip, slightly less powerful than the Ultra, but that’s not why it’s disposable. In fact, the M2 Max is already enough for a lot of professional tasks. For reference, I work with a MacBook Pro M1 Max for both content writing and video editing and production, and I still find it hard to get the full productivity out of it.
| Chip | CPU | performance cores | core efficiency | GPUs | motor neuron | RAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M2Max. | 12 cores | 8 cores | 4 cores | 60 (expandable to 76) | 16 cores | up to 96 GB |
| M2Ultra | 24 cores | 16 cores | 8 cores | 30 (expandable to 38) | 32 cores | up to 192 GB |
Mac Studio Performance
Synthetic tests confirm this. The Mac Studio, along with the Mac Pro, is the fastest computer ever made by Apple. Both computers have the same chips designed by the company.
The fundamental difference between the two products is that the Mac Pro is designed to be expandable with PCIe cards and has a very rugged chassis. Whereas Mac Studio offers the same performance encapsulated in the smallest possible way.
So, if you don’t need extra expansion or you’re using your hardware in a situation where the chassis needs to be as strong as possible, Mac Studio will give you the same performance in a much smaller package.
Measuring the performance of the Mac Studio M2 Ultra, it easily outperforms any other Mac released by Apple in the past. Notably, the Mac Studio 2023 is nearly three times as powerful in single-core mode and twice as powerful in multi-core mode as the 2019 Mac Pro with the fastest Intel chips available when it was still shipping. A team that cost around 9,000 euros at the time.
But synthetic evidence tells half the story. Daily work with text, editing images in Photos or Lightroom or video editing Premiere Pro, Mac Studio was exemplary. With 128GB of combined storage, I can keep all the professional apps I use every day open and running without a single sign of performance degradation.
I edited this video using the clips in 4K quality with 10-bit color (4:2:2), with preview, in the editor at maximum quality using Premiere Pro, and I was able to fully and completely work in the timeline. liquid. In comparison, with my MacBook Pro M1 Max, I can do this, but with 1/4 video clip preview quality.
Improved video editing performance means I can work on color grading anytime, anywhere, with video playing at full quality in real time. This is an example of many, which in this case is of great importance and saves a lot of time.
Higher performance means shorter video export times. On the same video time render with Mac Studio 2023 it was 4 minutes 34 seconds. With the MacBook Pro M1 Max it was 8 minutes and 51 seconds.
All this in absolute silence. If the Mac Studio fan was active, I never heard of it. In the past, to get similar results, you had to resort to a $9,000 Mac Pro or invest $3,000 to $4,000 in a professional PC installed in a ten times the tower, plus disability the need to use Windows.
Communication and expansion
Mac Studio 2023 supports all Mac Studio 2021 ports. Two USB-C or Thunderbolt 4 - in case it includes the M2 Ultra - and an SDXC slot on the front, four Thunderbolt 4 ports, 10Gb Ethernet, two USB-A, HDMI and 3.5mm audio port on the back. All this allows you to connect dozens of accessories and various peripheral devices.
The HDMI port has been improved in Mac Studio 2023. It is now version 2.1 and supports 8K@60Hz or 4K@120Hz resolutions. The 2022 version had HDMI 2.0 limiting it to 4K@60Hz displays.
But this is not the only way to connect monitors to the device. Also via Thunderbolt port and supports the following configurations:
- Eight simultaneous displays with 4K resolution at 60 Hz.
- Six screens with 6K resolution at 60Hz.
- 8K display at 60Hz
- You can also create combinations such as four Apple Pro Display XDRs and an 8K TV at the same time.
As for the wireless connection, Wi-Fi 6E is supported, which allows you to download files at very high speeds, up to 2.4 Gbps. And Bluetooth 5.3 for connecting the latest low latency speakers or headphones.
Mac Studio: the jewel in the crown
Apple has reached the level of sophistication of its Macs by combining innovation in building its own chips, building its own software, and designing its own hardware that is simply second to none. It's hard to find cons for Mac Studio. It is very fast, powerful, quiet and small. So much so that - not to mention the screen - it is even very portable due to its small size.
It is the ideal equipment for thousands of modern heavy duty equipment applications. There is no need to use external components to increase the power of the purchased computer. There really is everything here.
But looking to the future, its small size may be its biggest drawback. The hardware cannot be upgraded. You can not put more memory or later change the chip to a faster one. For some people, this can be a problem. In my opinion, today's Mac Studio will be powerful enough for the next five to seven years.
Source: Hiper Textual
I’m Ben Stock, a highly experienced and passionate journalist with a career in the news industry spanning more than 10 years. I specialize in writing content for websites, including researching and interviewing sources to produce engaging articles. My current role is as an author at Gadget Onus, where I mainly cover the mobile section.
