Review | Apple’s Mac Studio with M2 Max/Ultra chips is lightning fast and outperforms any other computer I’ve tested. It’s a dream machine for creative professionals
- It may look like just a small metal box, and needs a display and input device to hook up to, but the Mac Studio is an incredibly powerful piece of kit
- It renders and exports video at lightning speed, and can connect to 8 displays at once. No wonder Hollywood studios use it to make visuals for shows and movies
At its recent developer trade show Apple introduced an augmented reality headset that it insists on calling a “spatial computer”. But before a future with everyone wearing a computer on their heads materialises, the US tech giant is doubling down on its original claim to fame: the desk-bound computer.
The 2023 Mac Studio is a small metal box that comes configured with either Apple’s existing M2 Max chip or the just launched M2 Ultra that is literally two M2 Max chips stitched together, so twice as powerful. We put the latter version to the test.
Design and hardware
Apple products often get praised for their minimal, yet stylish design, and the Mac Studio is a clear example. Crafted of unibody aluminium, it’s a dense piece of tech with no moving parts.
There’s no shortage of ports, with six USB-Cs all supporting Thunderbolt 4, a pair of USB-As, and a single headphone jack, SD card slot, HDMI and Ethernet. I like that some of these ports are on the front of the machine, so I don’t have to reach around to the back to plug in a memory card or a charging cable.
There are two versions of the Mac Studio, the entry-level M2 Max version starting at US$1,999 (HK$16,999 in Hong Kong), and the M2 Ultra starting at US$3,999 (HK$32,999). My unit is specced out a bit with 128GB of unified memory, 76 core GPU and 4TB of storage, and goes for US$6,700 (HK$53,999).
The Mac Studio does not work on its own; it needs at least a display and one input device. The M2 Ultra version tested is powerful enough to support two separate 8K displays or eight 4K screens at once. Pairing it with Apple’s 5K Pro Display XDR was seamless.
Software and performance
The Mac Studio ships with Apple’s MacOS Ventura and it’s the exact same software used in all Apple Macs. There are no surprises whatsoever with the software; it behaves the same as it would on any Apple computer.
Performance, however, was surprising. In benchmarks apps like Geekbench, Cinebench and 3D Mark, it outperformed any other computer I’ve tested by a wide margin. In real-world usage, such as editing videos on Final Cut Pro, I can render and export a 12-minute 4K 30 fps video in under two minutes.
When I’m exporting a 60-second video for Instagram Reels, Final Cut Pro finishes the task in five seconds.
One advantage of Apple’s M chip is that it uses unified memory architecture, which means the RAM is shared by both CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit), giving each unit more freedom to allocate resources.
The unified structure and the fact all the computing bits are on one chip allows Apple silicon to be highly efficient compared to Intel processors. Throughout all my benchmark and video exporting tests, I never once heard the fan turn on, nor did the machine get hot – only moderately warm.
In fact, the Mac Studio is far too powerful for someone like me. After all, this is the same piece of kit used by Hollywood studios to produce visuals for shows and movies.
Conclusion
One downside of Mac Studio is that you cannot upgrade the components, because its body is not meant to be taken apart. But the computer is so powerful that most people won’t need to upgrade.
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For me, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to use even half of its power. Because of that, I actually would not purchase the Mac Studio for personal use, because Apple’s MacBook line is more than powerful enough for me. These machines all use Apple’s M chips, just different-tier chips.
For the majority of people, the M2 Pro or M2 Max chips are enough. The Ultra is for true creative professionals.
Whatever the case, Apple’s silicon is running laps around the competition.
