Apple launches new Mac Studios with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips

The caller Mac Studio.

After implicit a twelvemonth and a half, Apple is updating the Mac Studio with a funny caller quirk: it straddles 2 generations, with an M4 Max for the basal exemplary and an M3 Ultra for the upgraded model. You tin preorder some versions astatine Apple’s site for $1,999 (M4 Max) and $3,999 (M3 Ultra), and they’ll beryllium disposable to bargain connected March 12th.

Apple says the M4 Max Mac Studio is “up to 3.5x faster” than the archetypal M1 Max version, with a 14- to 16-core CPU and 32- to 40-core GPU. Like the M4 Max MacBook Pro, this mentation of the Studio starts with 36GB of RAM (up from 32GB successful the M2 model) and tin beryllium had with arsenic overmuch arsenic 128GB, a bump from the 96GB ceiling of the M2 Max Studio. Like its outgoing predecessor, it starts with 512GB of SSD retention but tin spell arsenic precocious arsenic 8TB.

Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra spot sounds similar it’s going to scream. It gets up to 32 cores, 24 of which are show cores — thing Apple notes is “50 percent much than immoderate erstwhile Ultra chip.” The GPU has a basal 60-core configuration that maxes retired astatine 80 cores, and Apple says it has a 32-core Neural Engine for instrumentality learning and AI applications.

The M3 Ultra mentation of the Studio has 96GB of RAM to start, but it tin spell up to a gobsmacking 512GB of RAM — capable to tally immoderate precise hefty AI models locally. Finally, you tin bump the basal 1TB interior retention to arsenic precocious arsenic 16 terabytes.

Apple says the Mac Studios’ GPUs volition diagnostic dynamic caching — that is, it volition store often accessed information successful cache to driblet latency — and hardware-accelerated mesh shading, some firsts for the company’s graphics chips. It volition besides person “a second-generation ray-tracing motor for much seamless contented instauration and gaming.”

On the outside, the caller Mac Studio is the aforesaid squat, square-ish metallic container arsenic before, with 2 USB-C ports and an SD Card slot connected the front. Around the back, you’ll find 4 much USB-C ports, 2 USB-A ports, and 1 larboard each for ethernet, power, and audio, arsenic good arsenic an audio jack and the powerfulness button. Both CPU configurations travel with Thunderbolt 5 connections, but arsenic with older-generation Studios, lone the 4 rear USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 5 connected the M4 Max — you’ll request an M3 Ultra Mac Studio to get it connected each six.