Mac Studio announced - Apple's most powerful computer yet
Apple has announced a brand-new device at its March Event: the Mac Studio, a compact computer that's aimed at creative professionals. And it comes with the new M1 Ultra chip (or the M1 Max, in a cheaper config).
Allowing users to create the "studio of their dreams", the new Mac Studio looks like a beefed-up Mac mini with some seriously powerful specifications.
Not only is this a very powerful PC, the Mac Studio offers enormous connectivity options: four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, plus support for four Pro Display XDR monitors and a 4K TV as well.
You can also hook it up to the new Studio Display. All this power in a compact design that's just 3.7 inches high comes at a price, however, with the Mac Studio starting at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,099 for the model with the M1 Max, and $3,999 / £3,999 / AU$6,099 for the model with the M1 Ultra.
According to Apple, "Mac Studio delivers even more capability to users who are looking to push the limits of their creativity," and can be used as part of a modular system.
We'll hopefully get our hands on one soon, but until then, here's everything we know about the Mac Studio so far.
Price and availability
The Mac Studio starts at a hefty $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,099 for the model with the M1 Max, certainly a pricey prospect.
Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with the new M1 Ultra chip, 64GB of unified memory and 1TB SSD will cost a huge $3,999 / £3,999 / AU$6,099. This could put a lot of people off.
If you want to go all-out, the maximum spec with the M1 Ultra, 128GB memory and 8TB SSD will cost you an eye-watering $7,999 / £7,999 / AU$12,099. That's still cheaper than the most expensive Mac Pro, however.
It's available to pre-order from today, and will ship March 18. If you can afford it.
Design
If you're a fan of the Mac mini, then you'll like the design of the Mac Studio, which essentially looks like a beefed-up Mac mini. It's built from a single aluminium extrusion, and has a square footprint of 7.7 inches and a height of 3.7 inches, making this an impressively compact computer considering the power on offer.
To keep things cool, there are double-sided blowers to channel airflow through the Mac Studio, and Apple has promised it will remain quiet, even when working hard.
The Mac Studio also comes with a good range of connectivity options. There's four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port and audio jack on the back, plus Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
There is also an SD card slot on the front, along with two USB-C ports.
Performance
The Mac Studio is 50% faster than the MacBook Pro with M1 Mac, and 3.4 faster graphics than the most powerful iMac, according to Apple.
It's also apparently 80% faster than a Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, and can support up to 18 streams of 8K ProRess video. This promises to be an extremely powerful little computer.
Apple claims it will "change everything", which is certainly a bold statement. But if performance holds up, then this could be a very interesting device.
Specifications
The Mac Studio comes with a choice of the powerful M1 Max (found in the newest MacBook Pro 16-inch and MacBook Pro 14-inch laptops), or the new M1 Ultra, which is essentially two M1 Max chips connected together, which will offer some incredibly impressive performance.
This means it can come with up to a 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU, and supports up to 128GB of unified memory.
Memory bandwidth is also extremely fast, with up to 800GB/s, and also comes with up to 8TB of SSD storage.
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