After over a year and a half, Apple is updating the Mac Studio with a curious new quirk: it straddles two generations, with an M4 Max for the base model and an M3 Ultra for the upgraded model. You can preorder both versions at Apple’s site for $1,999 (M4 Max) and $3,999 (M3 Ultra), and they’ll be available to buy on March 12th.
Apple says the M4 Max Mac Studio is “up to 3.5x faster” than the original M1 Max version, with a 14- to 16-core CPU and 32- to 40-core GPU. Like the M4 Max MacBook Pro, this version of the Studio starts with 36GB of RAM (up from 32GB in the M2 model) and can be had with as much as 128GB, a bump from the 96GB ceiling of the M2 Max Studio. Like its outgoing predecessor, it starts with 512GB of SSD storage but can go as high as 8TB.
Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra chip sounds like it’s going to scream. It gets up to 32 cores, 24 of which are performance cores — something Apple notes is “50 percent more than any previous Ultra chip.” The GPU has a base 60-core configuration that maxes out at 80 cores, and Apple says it has a 32-core Neural Engine for machine learning and AI applications.
The M3 Ultra version of the Studio has 96GB of RAM to start, but it can go up to a gobsmacking 512GB of RAM — enough to run some very hefty AI models locally. Finally, you can bump the base 1TB internal storage to as high as 16 terabytes.
Apple says the Mac Studios’ GPUs will feature dynamic caching — that is, it will store frequently accessed data in cache to drop latency — and hardware-accelerated mesh shading, both firsts for the company’s graphics chips. It will also have “a second-generation ray-tracing engine for more seamless content creation and gaming.”
On the outside, the new Mac Studio is the same squat, square-ish silver box as before, with two USB-C ports and an SD Card slot on the front. Around the back, you’ll find four more USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, and one port each for ethernet, power, and audio, as well as an audio jack and the power button. Both CPU configurations come with Thunderbolt 5 connections, but as with older-generation Studios, only the four rear USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Max — you’ll need an M3 Ultra Mac Studio to get it on all six.