In a bit of a surprise move, Apple today unveiled its new Mac Studio with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chip options, Thunderbolt 5 ports, and more. While we had expected to see a new MacBook Air this week (which we did), a new Mac Studio had not been expected.
The M4 Max chip used in the new Mac Studio can be configured with up to a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and up to 128GB of unified RAM. Geekbench 6 benchmark results indicate that the M4 Max is up to 75% faster than the M2 Max chip used in the previous-generation Mac Studio.
Meanwhile, the new M3 Ultra chip option boasts up to a 32-core CPU, with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores. Apple says the M3 Ultra chip is up to 1.5x faster than the previous Mac Studio’s M2 Ultra chip, which has up to a 24-core CPU.
“The new Mac Studio is the most powerful Mac we’ve ever made,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. “A complete game-changer for pros around the world — powering both home and pro studios — Mac Studio sits in a class of its own, offering a staggering amount of performance in a compact, quiet design that fits beautifully on your desk. With this new Mac Studio, we’re delivering even more extreme performance with M4 Max and M3 Ultra, support for half a terabyte of unified memory, up to 16TB of superfast storage, and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. Mac Studio truly is the ultimate pro desktop.”
As for graphics, the new Mac Studio can be configured with up to an 80-core GPU. Apple says graphics performance is up to 2x faster than the previous Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra chip, which could be configured with up to a 72-core GPU.
The M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips offer hardware-accelerated ray tracing for the first time, a first for the Mac Studio. This technology enables improved graphics rendering in games.
In the storage column, the Mac Studio can now be configured with up to 16TB of SSD storage, up from the previous model’s 8TB maximum. As for RAM, the M3 Ultra chip supports up to 512GB of unified RAM, up from the 192GB of unified RAM the M2 Ultra maxed out at.
The new Mac Studio also supports Thunderbolt 5. M4 Max chip Mac Studio configurations have four Thunderbolt 5 ports, with six Thunderbolt 5 ports on configurations with the M3 Ultra chip. Thunderbolt 5 provides up to 120 Gb/s data transfer speeds.
Today’s update is the first refresh for the Mac Studio since it was updated with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chip options in June 2023.
The external design of the Mac Studio has not changed, as the front of the computer has two Thunderbolt 5 or USB-C ports depending on the configuration, as well as an SD card slot, while the rear of the Studio boasts four Thunderbolt 5 ports, an HDMI port, a 10-Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, a headphone jack, a power cord connector, and a power button.
The new model now offers support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The new Mac Studio can drive up to eight 6K displays. The previous Studio supported up to six 6K displays.
Pricing and Availability
- Customers can pre-order the new Mac Studio starting today on apple.com/store and in the Apple Store app in 28 countries and regions, including the U.S. It will begin arriving to customers, and will be in Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, starting Wednesday, March 12.
- Mac Studio starts at $1,999 (U.S.) and $1,799 (U.S.) for education. Additional configure-to-order options are available at apple.com/store.
