Mac Studio: Apple hits the bullseye with this steroid-doped Mac Mini

Apple Mac Studio (M1 Ultra) – Best prices:

Apple knows how to cultivate mystery. Rumors surrounding its March 8 keynote centered on a second-generation M2 processor in a new MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, and/or Mac Mini. In fact, Apple used the event to showcase another iteration of its existing M1 lineup – the M1 Ultra, which combines two 10-core M1 Max chips to create a colossal 20-core SoC (system-on-chip). hearts.

Rather than using the M1 Ultra to upgrade an existing Mac, Apple created an entirely new design, called Mac Studio. Apple also discontinued the Intel-based 27-inch iMac, making it clear that the Mac Studio, along with the new 27-inch Studio Display, was aimed at the many designers and creative users who have always used the iMac as their main office.

Available with an M1 Max or M1 Ultra processor, the Mac Studio’s design is both surprisingly new and immediately familiar. The device looks more like a Mac Mini on steroids than anything else. It was instantly dubbed “Mac Mini Pro” by many Apple watchers, while iFixit teams described it, following its teardown, with these words: “more than a Mac Mini, but not everything quite a Mac Pro”.

It must be said that the similarities between the two devices are numerous. Like the Mac Mini, the Mac Studio is sold without a screen, mouse or keyboard. It has the same form factor as the Mac Mini, with 197 mm (7.7 inches) side. The difference is that the Mac Studio is considerably larger, at 95 mm (3.7 inches), compared to 36 mm (1.4 inches) for the Mac Mini. Much of that extra volume goes into a more powerful cooling system that can handle the heat generated by the M1 Max and Ultra processors. However, Apple has also improved the Mac Studio’s connectivity to meet the needs of business users.

A supercharged Mac

The rear panel of the Mac Studio has four Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI connector. The multi-core GPUs provided by the M1 Max (24-32 cores) and Ultra (48-64 cores) allow the Mac Studio to support four of Apple’s Pro 6K displays and one 4K display. The rear panel of the device also houses two USB-A ports, 10-Gigabit Ethernet, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apple Mac Studio (M1 Ultra) – Best prices:

Breaking with Apple tradition, the Mac Studio even has a few extra ports on its front – so you won’t have to get up and reach behind the Mac to plug in a USB drive or SD card. If you opt for a high-end Mac Studio equipped with the M1 Ultra processor, you get an SDXC card slot and two additional Thunderbolt 4 ports (supporting speeds of up to 40 Gbps), while the version M1 Max has two USB-C ports (up to 10 Gb / s).

Still, it’s primarily the Mac Studio’s M1 processors that really set it apart from the more compact Mac Mini. As we mentioned, the Mac Studio is available with either an M1 Max or an M1 Ultra, the latter featuring a 20-core CPU, 48 or 64 GPU cores, and a 32-core neural engine. It is not easy to put two M1 Max processors together.

Rather than connecting them through the motherboard, Apple has developed an on-chip interconnect technology called UltraFusion, which allows macOS to simply treat the M1 Ultra as a single processor. This means that software developers don’t have to rewrite their applications to use the M1 Ultra’s dual processors, allowing Mac Studio to really work.

Prices far from Mini

The M1 Max doesn’t generate as much heat as the M1 Ultra, so it only requires an aluminum heatsink, which translates to a total weight of 2.7 kg. However, the greater power of the M1 Ultra requires a copper heatsink, which increases the weight to 3.6 kg. Still, that weight isn’t much more than a big 16- or 17-inch laptop, and Apple can be proud of having built a desktop workstation capable of holding in a backpack.

Apple Mac Studio (M1 Max) – Best prices:

There is a huge price difference between the two versions of the Mac Studio, with the M1 Max model starting at $2,299. This price includes an M1 Max with a 10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine, along with 32GB of onboard “unified” memory and 512GB of storage at the solid state. However, if you opt for an M1 Ultra, the price instantly doubles to 4,599 euros. You’ll then have a 20-core CPU (3.2GHz), 48-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, along with 64GB and a 1TB SSD hard drive.

We can of course defend these prices by recalling that the entry-level Mac Studio with M1 Max represents a direct replacement for the 27-inch iMac, which has been discontinued. Still, the price of the iMac included a built-in 5K display, whereas the Mac Studio doesn’t even include a keyboard or mouse, let alone a display.

Ultimately, the Mac Studio is one of those models that only Apple could design, offering a unique combination of power and elegance – along with frustrations such as its lack of internal expansion and user upgrades. Some users will regret the demise of the all-in-one 27-inch iMac, but the Mac Studio proves that Apple Silicon can enable true workstation performance and gives the professional end of the desktop line Apple a welcome boost.

Source: ZDNet.com