Apart from the new M4 MacBook Air, Apple has also announced the new M4 Max and M3 Ultra-powered Mac Studio with enormous performance gains compared to the previous version and industry standards. We recently learned that Apple was planning to launch the M4 MacBook Air, but it appears the company had something surprising for us. The new Mac Studio comes with the same boxier design as the previous version but is a powerhouse on the inside with two-chip configurations.
Apple has announced the new Mac Studio in two chip configurations, the M4 Max and M3 Ultra
As mentioned, the new Mac Studio comes with an M4 Max and M3 Ultra option, giving content creators and professionals raw power that is a major step up from the previous Max and Ultra chip on the machine. The Mac Studio features the same minimalist design as the previous version, with a handful of ports on the back.
The new Mac Studio comes with Thunderbolt 5 ports that deliver enhanced data transfer speeds of up to 120 Gbps, which is three times faster than the previous version. Apple says:
Apple today announced the new Mac Studio, the most powerful Mac ever made, featuring M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chip. The ultimate pro desktop delivers groundbreaking pro performance, extensive connectivity now with Thunderbolt 5, and new capabilities in its compact and quiet design that can live right on a desk. Mac Studio can tackle the most intense workloads with its powerful CPU, Apple’s advanced graphics architecture, higher unified memory capacity, ultrafast SSD storage, and a faster and more efficient Neural Engine. It provides a big boost in performance compared to the previous generation, and a massive leap for users coming from older Macs.
In terms of performance, the M3 Ultra chip houses a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores and eight efficiency cores, which is the highest number of CPU cores on a Mac. Additionally, the machine features up to 80 cores of GPU, which is also more than any Apple Silicon chip to date. In comparison, the performance of the M3 Ultra chip is twice as fast as the M4 Max chip in tasks that are CPU and GPU-oriented. The M3 Ultra chip is also 2.6 times faster than Apple's M1 Ultra Mac Studio.
Furthermore, the M3 Ultra also starts with 96GB of unified memory, which can be bumped up to 512GB, and the storage capacity can be upgraded to a staggering 16TB. Connectivity-wise, the Mac Studio comes with two USB-C ports and an SD card slot on the front for easier access. On the back, the machine features four Thunderbolt 5 ports, an HDMI port, a 10Gb Ethernet port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and two USB-A ports.
The new Mac Studio features Thunderbolt 5 ports that deliver transfer speeds up to 120 Gb/s, up to 3x faster than the prior generation, enabling faster external storage, expansion chassis, and powerful hub solutions. For those who rely on PCIe expansion cards for their workflows, Thunderbolt 5 allows users to connect an external expansion chassis with higher bandwidth and lower latency. And with M3 Ultra, Mac Studio now drives up to eight Pro Display XDRs at the full 6K resolution. Mac Studio also offers a wide array of connectivity within easy reach for pros, including a 10Gb Ethernet port, an HDMI port, an SDXC card slot on the front to conveniently import photos and video, along with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Apple had already unveiled its M4 Max chip with the MacBook Pro lineup last year, but it is the first time the M3 Ultra chip has made an appearance. It remains to be seen how the new chip performs on Geekbench. The M4 Max Mac Studio starts at $1,999, and the M3 Ultra Mac Studio starts at $3,999. You can get a fully specked-out version of the Mac Studio for $14,099. You can pre-order the machine starting today, and shipments will begin March 12. We will be covering extensive details related to the new chips, so do stick around.
About the author: Ali Salman is a technology reporter for Wccftech mobile section with a specialized focus on Apple and the intellectual property that drives mobile innovation. He has cultivated a unique expertise in analyzing and deconstructing complex technology patents, translating dense legal and technical documents into clear, insightful reports on future products.
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