Apple's Mac Studio just got a major speed boost from two new models.
The first is the Mac Studio with M4 Max, which is designed for video editors, developers, photographers and other creative pros.
And for serious professionals and power users there's the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra, which pushes the limits of performance with the most powerful chip ever in a Mac — complete with a 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU.
I got a chance to see both of these computers in action, and they both have the potential to make our list of the best mini PCs.
Here's what you need to know about these compact beasts.
Mac Studio M4 Max
The Mac Studio with M4 Max starts at $1,999 and has a release date of March 12. It's available for pre-order now.
The M4 Max chip features a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU and a Neural Engine that is over 3x faster than the M1 Max.
This system starts with 36GB of unified memory and goes up to 128GB.
Overall, Apple says the Mac Studio M4 Max is up to 3.5x faster than Mac Studio with M1 Max and up to 6.1x faster than the previous Intel-based 27-inch iMac.
In terms of graphics, you get Apple's most advanced architecture, which includes dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and a second-gen ray-tracing engine.
Thunderbolt 5, AI boost
Another big upgrade is Thunderbolt 5. It delivers transfer speeds up to 120 Gb/s. That's 3x faster than the previous generation.
The benefit of all this is that the Mac Studio now enables faster external storage, expansion and more powerful hub solutions.
When it comes to AI, Apple says the Mac Studio can run large language models with over 600 billion parameters, depending on the amount of unified memory.
Seeing the Mac Studio M4 Max in action
All of these specs sound impressive, but what do they mean for users?
I got a chance to see an impressive demo using the Autodesk Frame visual effects software.
The Mac Studio with M4 Max easily manipulated all sorts of effects in Node video and seamlessly blended both digital elements and real-world footage.
In one scene, the Mac Studio M4 Max could quickly add 5K buildings to the background of a nighttime sky. The editor could easily add smoke to the scene and even control the size of the smoke.
Mac Studio with M3 Ultra
I know it might seem weird to have an M3 Ultra chip be faster than an M4 Max, but trust me when I say the specs and demo back that up.
Apple says that the M3 Ultra delivers nearly 2x faster performance than the M4 Max and up to 2.5x the performance of the M1 Ultra.
The chip combines two 3-nanometer dies using Apple's UltraFusion packaging for a total of 184 billion transistors.
You get up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores. That's the most CPU cores ever in a Mac.
In addition, the M3 Ultra packs up to an 80-core GPU and 32-core Neural Engine. The unified memory bandwidth is a sky-high 800GB/s.
This system starts with 96GB of unified memory, and you can go all the way up to 512GB. That's not storage, it's memory!
The storage goes up to 16TB.
This system starts at $3,999 with 96GB of unified memory and goes on sale on March 12.
Mac Studio M3 Ultra in action
I witnessed how powerful the M3 Ultra chip is in a couple of demos. The first involved creating graphics in a game using Cinema 4D.
By leveraging LLM Studio, the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra could help the user create a Python script for some ficus plants.
From there, you copy and paste the code into Cinema 4D, and it renders in seconds what could have taken hours.
In another demo, I got my first look in person at Cyperpunk 2077, which is coming to the Mac this year.
With all the settings turned on high and the frame rate locked to 60 fps, the Mac Studio with M4 Max delivered gorgeous-looking graphics and super smooth gameplay.
As the player walked into a nighttime scene, everything from a lighted walkway to booth vendors in the distance looked super realistic.
Don't worry. Cyberpunk 2077 is coming to all Macs running the M4 chip.
Outlook
The Mac Studio with M4 Max has the potential to be one of the best mini PCs ever made. The combination of the M4 Max chip and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity could raise the bar for the category.
And we hope to test the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra to see just how powerful this chip is. Even if it's overkill for users like me.
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