Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Announces Powerful 'Mac Studio' With M1 Ultra Chip and Companion 'Studio Display'
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
For a while, I’ve liked the idea of a Mac mini with more vertical clearance, desktop hardware, and more ports. (Thunderbolt does help to reduce the need for internal expansion, given that you can use PCIe cards in an external chassis.) So this definitely delivers in that regard. I’m guessing that eGPU support is still out in this generation of M1 chips, unfortunately, and the RAM is likely not user upgradable (and that ship has likely sailed, at least on M1 Macs), but, other than that, this is that expandable desktop Mac we’ve been wanting since, well, since the death of the G4 tower.
No, because they were only intended for russian oligarchs…but now with all the sanctions does not give a damn anymore…
Last edited:
Apple has a ton of research on their product mix that we'll never have insight into.
In simple terms, they could be positioning the 24" M1 iMac as the basic model for family computing.
The 27" (and associated performance) is best suited for people that need the flexibility of multiple (matching) monitors, and a wide range of hardware options (mini, Studio) that ultimately give way more flexibility than a spec'd-out 27 iMac or iMac Pro.
This is my perspective as a former iMac Pro owner.
The LG 27" Ultrafine 5K still sells for $1,200–$1,300, so the price of the Studio Display is not unreasonable for the additional functionality it provides.
Apple definitely left a hole in the lineup between the M1 Mac mini and the M1 Max Mac Studio. This may be addressed with the M2, which will hopefully support up to 32GB of RAM, but we'll find out later this year.
I don't see any hole in the mini-> Studio line up.
Get a base model for the $700, and bump it all the way to ~$1400 if you want to get close to the base Studio. For $1400 you're getting 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, 10GbE. Are you asking for something in the $1700 range?
I guess if you want a machine with M1 or M1 Pro performance and 32GB or more of RAM, workflows where you need more RAM than processor speed, there’s a bit of a hole there. Or if you wanted the M1 Pro in a headless design, there’s a hole there. But I’d argue that the Studio closes an even bigger hole, namely small form factor i9 or Xeon performance outside of an all-in-one or tower.
Then again, if the M1 is roughly equivalent to an i3 or i5 (in terms of position in the product lineup), the M1 Pro roughly an i7, the M1 Max roughly an i9, and the M1 Ultra roughly a Xeon, Apple rarely ever had a Mac mini operating in that i7 space (well, it was a BTO option, but, with the exception of the top of the line quad-core 2012 model, Apple only ever offered a dual core i7 option) and never had a desktop headless offering in the i9 space (Xeon, yes, i9, no). So the top of the line i7 equivalent Mac mini offering still has a hole, but it’s a hole that hasn’t been filled since 2012 (and is far more likely to be filled with an M1 Pro than it ever was on Intel).
It’s not silly. They were designed to pull more money out of businesses’s bank account in the first place. Purely evil business decision.
I was actually hoping for a Mac mini with an M1 Pro and 32GB of RAM — that config would be perfect for many of the applications I run internally. Maybe we'll see something like that when the M2 comes out, but otherwise I'll spend a little more for a Mac Studio with M1 Max and 32GB of RAM instead.
It's probably not a huge "hole" in the line-up in terms of marketshare, but we all know that Apple has never been all things to everyone.
If this is intended as a replacement for the 27" iMac, it would have been cool to reinforce the modularity of the system by having these two products physically interact somehow, like the Studio could attach to the base of the display or magnetically attach on the back? The internals seem excellent and I am excited about the studio display but from it does seem like there's a missed opportunity for some additional industrial design fun. Post-Ive it seems like no one's having any fun at Apple anymore, except shareholders I guess.
On the flip side, an M1 Max has twice the benchmark performance of the CPU and GPU in that $1799 iMac.
The raw panel is probably a $500 BOM cost to Apple based on eBay prices for scavenged ones from dead iMacs. Add in the case and electronics and stand and R&D and production and it probably costs Apple nearside of $1000 just to make a Studio Display.
Add in that the LG UltraFine 5K is $1300 and the Apple Studio Display is better in every category.
I mean the Apple Thunderbolt Display was $1000 and it was half-the resolution of this Studio Display, lacked TrueTone, WideColor and could only achieve 75% of the peak brightness. It also had a 720p webcam versus a 1080p 25MP one.
I am sure you could put the display on top of the Mac Studio.
And it would save you the $400 for the height-adjustable stand option.
Yeah that's a pretty small hole to fill. I think they did a good job, if we have to pick it apart at that level of specificity.
And here we have the answer:
M1 Ultra Mac Studio is 2 Pounds Heavier Than M1 Max Version Due to Thermal Differences
The Mac Studio comes in two varieties, one with the same M1 Max chip used in the 2021 MacBook Pro models and a second featuring an M1 Ultra chip,...
www.macrumors.com
During the Apple Event at about 36 minutes in it was claimed the Mac Studio had 'Modularity'. Anyone else not seeing how this thing is modular? Didn't see anything about being able to swap CPU, Ram, SSDs during the keynote at all.
Well it's "modular" compared to an iMac 5K it replaces since the compute unit and the monitor are separate "modules".
The Studio is WAY more computer than 2 MacMini’s. Apple has set a very reasonable price. They will sell tons of them, fast.
this is exactly right. there's no consumer version for a 27" now. either 24" M1 iMac maxed out at $2500 or starting price for basic studio M1 Max at $3500 with the monitor (more if you need a keyboard and/or mouse). and to replace my 2017 iMac 27" 5K that has a 3TB fusion drive and 64GB memory- to get near comparable specs for what I got then for what's avail now, it's a minimum of a $1200 upgrade for the 4TB SSD option and another $400 for the 64GB memory option. so to get something similar to what I'm trying to replace it'll cost me $5100 minimum.
they've done away with any 27" consumer option and have left a gap. Hopefully they'll fill it with a 27" iMac...but worried they won't.
I like computers. I like this. I have 2014 iMac 5k. I confused over what to buy now. Want things but money is much.
So with support for one 4k tv does that mean I wouldn’t need 3rd party software to use this Mac on a 4k tv as my primary monitor?
Apple today at its "Peek Performance" event announced a new Mac Studio desktop computer with a companion Studio Display monitor.
With a 3.7-inch tall enclosure, the Mac Studio looks like a larger Mac mini, but it is far more powerful. The computer can be configured with the same M1 Max chip as found in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro or the just-announced M1 Ultra chip, which features a 20-core CPU, up to a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core Neural Engine. The computer can be configured with up to 8TB of SSD storage and up to 128GB of unified memory.
On the back of the Mac Studio, connectivity options include four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, one 10-Gigabit Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones. On the front, there is an SD card slot (UHS-II), along with two USB-C ports for M1 Max configurations or two Thunderbolt 4 ports for M1 Ultra configurations. The computer supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
Apple says the Mac Studio remains "incredibly quiet" under the "heaviest workloads," with over 4,000 perforations on the back and bottom of the computer's enclosure guiding air through the internal components to help cool the high-performance M1 Ultra chip.
Key features of the Studio Display include a 27-inch screen size, a slim all-aluminum enclosure, 5K resolution, up to 600 nits of brightness, support for the P3 wide color gamut and over one billion colors, a built-in stand that allows the user to tilt the display up to 30 degrees, an A13 Bionic chip that powers advanced camera and audio features, a 12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera with Center Stage, a six-speaker sound system, and more.
Studio Display has three USB-C ports and a Thunderbolt 4 port that delivers 96W of pass-through power to charge a connected MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.
Customers can order the Mac Studio and Studio Display starting today through Apple's online store, with availability starting March 18. In the U.S., pricing starts at $1,999 for the Mac Studio with M1 Max and at $3,999 with M1 Ultra. The Studio Display is priced at $1,599 with a tilt-adjustable stand and at $1,999 with a tilt- and height-adjustable stand.
"We couldn't be more excited to introduce an entirely new Mac desktop and display with Mac Studio and Studio Display," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Mac Studio ushers in a new era for the desktop with unbelievable performance powered by M1 Max and M1 Ultra, an array of connectivity, and a compact design that puts everything users need within easy reach."
Article Link: Apple Announces Powerful 'Mac Studio' With M1 Ultra Chip and Companion 'Studio Display'
It is unreasonable considering the 27" iMac retailed at $1799, for $200 over the Studio display you get an entire computer + mouse & keyboard. The LG 27" display is also overpriced, they sure didn't sell many.
No the hole in the line up is between the 24" iMac and the 27" studio display paired w/mac mini. There is no decently priced 27" combination.
Silly from a customer perspective. I agree that Apple these days is pure greed, and they know the suckers will keep buying.
The comparison is the 27" iMac, everything else is irrelevant. For $200 more than the Studio display you got a whole computer and keyboard + mouse. Only the blind fanboys can't see that Apple is taking them for a ride.
Only in the most casual use-cases. For anything serious the additional latency makes this completely useless. It's not a good way to connect to storage, for instance, compared to a PCIe HBA directly connected to the motherboard. Yes, the bandwidth might be the same, but if the latency of random access R/W is increased your overall throughput drops and the CPU ends up sitting in a wait state. There's a reason the rest of the industry hasn't changed wholly to Thunderbolt, and it's because they cater to people other than "creators" working in their bedrooms.