2023 Mac Studio Reviews: Faster M2 Ultra Chip and 8K Display Support

[coolfactor]

tl;dr - a computer that was already a pretty solid choice for many of the more demanding tasks one could do in macOS is now even more so.

Where do we go from here? 12 displays? 16 displays? its getting a bit crazy on the spec side of things. Apple is really delivering on specs these days... way more than 99% of people need.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

That's what she said!! 😂 🤣

🤦‍♂️ I'm probably the one of youngest guys here... HOW AM I MORE MATURE?!

 

[jgleigh]

Interesting (surprising?) that despite an updated chip, the improvement in performance between the original M1 Max and the updated M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips seems to be merely equal to or less than relative increase in the number of processing cores. On a per-core basis it doesn't look like the M2 chips are significantly faster than the M1 chips.

Could be hitting other bottlenecks in the system. I expected more of a jump from M1 Ultra to M2 Ultra given the faster per core performance (and clock rate) and four additional CPU cores.

 

[surfzen21]

🤦‍♂️ I'm probably the one of youngest guys here... HOW AM I MORE MATURE?!

Oh my bad. I must have bypassed the maturity part of the requirements for posting in the forums.

I hope I don't get banned before you develop a sense of humor.

 

[ErneX]

@fromgophonetoiphone not sure Intel is a great comparison considering TSMC took the lead in die shrink since quite some time ago.

Besides better battery life for phones/tablets/laptops there’s also more room for more transistors, eg more cpu/gpu cores and features. I’m sure Apple at some point maybe not on M3 will add their own form of hardware accelerated ray tracing as well.

 

[MisterAndrew]

So M2 Ultra is slower than both the new Intel and AMD CPUs in real world tests according to the Ars Technica review, despite it doing better in synthetic benchmarks. Shows that Geekbench results don't really mean anything.

Are there any reviews that compare it against the 2019 Mac Pro? I'd like to see how the GPU compares to the W6800X Duo and W6900X.

 

[Pressure]

Why do the new Mac Pro and Mac Studio have the exact same performance specs but differ by $3000? 🤔

That should really be obvious just by looking at them. Big honking tower or small 3.7 liter enclosure.

In case you aren’t trolling have the following in mind with regards to the Mac Pro:

• Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and numpad
• Magic Mouse
• Broadcom PXL chip with 64 PCIe Gen4 lanes
• Giant logic board with 6 PCIe slots
• Thunderbolt 4 daughter board
• 1280 Watt power supply
• Large CNC cut chassis with many fans
• Lower sales volume

 

[Mity]

Most PC OEMs have similar pricing structures for their physical RAM upgrades. Dell, for example, wants $2200 for 64GB for one of the model servers we use while Crucial will sell it to us for $220 - 1/10th the price. We still ante up for the Dell modules, since we bundle it all into a service contract.

That's not a fair comparison because most PCs have physical RAM and SSD slots. You at least have the option to upgrade on your own.

 

[i486dx2-66]

LG makes TONS of 4k displays for less than $500, but their 5K displays are all over $1,000.

I thought LG had only one 5K display they sell.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, LG has actually made a whole host of 27" "UltraFine 5K" models, some of which have co-existed in parallel, and yes, have even had significant price differences between them.

27MD5KA, 27MD5KA-B, 27MD5KB, 27MD5KB-B, 27MD5KL, 27MD5KLB, 27MD5KL-B, and 27MD5KLB-B are the models that I'm aware of. (If you know of any others, please add them to my thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-complete-list-of-27-5k-displays.2390249/)

Now for practical purposes, is the
27" Class UltraFine™ 5K IPS LED Monitor (27" Diagonal)
the same thing as the
LG 27 Inch UltraFine 5K IPS Monitor with macOS Compatibility
or the
27” UltraFine™ 5K IPS Monitor with Thunderbolt 3 & Type C Ports & macOS Compatibility
?

They might be for most users. But they have in fact seen technical revisions, such as the EMI / shielding fixes that halted deliveries, and some specifications such as power consumption have varied over time. LG seems to think they are different enough to rewrite the owners manuals periodically as well. 🤷‍♂️

 

[basehead617]

192 GB RAM is about 1/10 of what I need now and over the next 3 years.

Perfect case study for when people ask 'Who would need a 2019 Mac Pro?!'

EDIT: oh, 10x that... maybe not

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

@fromgophonetoiphone not sure Intel is a great comparison considering TSMC took the lead in die shrink since quite some time ago.

Besides better battery life for phones/tablets/laptops there’s also more room for more transistors, eg more cpu/gpu cores and features. I’m sure Apple at some point maybe not on M3 will add their own form of hardware accelerated ray tracing as well.

I think what I'm trying to say is going from 32 nm down to 22 nm and 14 nm wasn't exactly that problematic for Intel. They managed it, but expecting some massive revolutionary performance increase isn't realistic either. AMD's kinda hitting that limit these days too and if you look at the last generation or so it was really playing around with boost mode to better saturate thermal dissipation capabilities (read: maintain higher clocks for longer). If you can even get +10% IPC these days you've got a winning next gen chip. M3 isn't going to be that fundamentally different from M2 and M1.

 

[De4our]

here's my dilemma: it's time for me to buy a new machine. i want a mac studio. my choices i'm mulling is do i get the M2 Max and get 96 GB of RAM, or should I get the M2 Ultra with 64GB RAM? The kind of work I do is drawing in Clip Studio, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, and Premier. Basically, I do a lot of graphics and some video. Right now I'm using an M1 Macbook Air with 16GB of RAM I bought when it came out (~2.5 years ago) and I'm ready for a desktop again. Thoughts?

One thing I'd keep in mind is the RAM-per-core argument, I don't know if it's necessarily as true now given the unified memory situation but I always found tech sites advising at least 4GB of RAM per core—which would be 96GB for the Ultra. Even if that wasn't the case, 64GB split between the 24 CPU cores and 60/76 GPU cores would stretch thin with Adobe Premiere depending on the video codecs you're editing with. Just my two cents!

 

[CWallace]

That's not a fair comparison because most PCs have physical RAM and SSD slots. You at least have the option to upgrade on your own.

True, and that option was available for the Intel desktop Mac line (Mac Pro, iMac and Mac mini). But again, my point is that Apple's OEM pricing for those parts was not out of line to what PC OEMs were pricing many of their components and in both cases, you could buy cheaper RAM from third parties.

Apple Silicon's design might not really suit itself for socketed RAM (user-replaceable or otherwise). And Apple is not unique in this - I am pretty sure you cannot upgrade the RAM in the portable models of Microsoft's Surface line (definitely the ARM models and I believe the Intel models, as well) nor can you upgrade the RAM in smartphones or tablets, for example.

 

[De4our]

So still getting thrashed by Intel, even in the most favorable bench for Apple? Yikes.

As a video editor, those built-in Afterburner decoders and encoders make these M chips FLY in comparison to Intel Xeon at least. You won't see that in Geekbench obviously, but that's an example that's literally saved me hundreds of hours coming from the 2019 Mac Pro (which I sold as soon as the M1 Max MBP came out, friggin' laptop ran circles around that thing.)

 

[solardudesf]

This support article on apple.com says that the 2022 Mac Studio already supported high impedance headphones. Is it just incorrect?

Use high-impedance headphones with your Mac - Apple Support

You can connect high-impedance headphones directly to compatible Mac computers introduced in 2021 or later.

support.apple.com

These Mac computers support high-impedance headphones with the built-in headphone jack:

• MacBook Air introduced in 2022
• MacBook Pro introduced in 2021 or later
• Mac mini introduced in 2023
• Mac Studio introduced in 2022

Published Date: January 24, 2023

 

[Eidorian]

So M2 Ultra is slower than both the new Intel and AMD CPUs in real world tests according to the Ars Technica review, despite it doing better in synthetic benchmarks. Shows that Geekbench results don't really mean anything.

Are there any reviews that compare it against the 2019 Mac Pro? I'd like to see how the GPU compares to the W6800X Duo and W6900X.

I haven't trusted Geekbench since 2008 when I couldn't get a consistent benchmark on my Macbook 13".

 

[eifelbube]

…

Too bad the Mac Studio M2 Max was not included in the benchmark review as this would have helped to put the $2k starting price difference between the Max and the Ultra into some perspective. The Ultra is double the price here … so, does it also offer double the performance?

 

[NT1440]

As a video editor, those built-in Afterburner decoders and encoders make these M chips FLY in comparison to Intel Xeon at least. You won't see that in Geekbench obviously, but that's an example that's literally saved me hundreds of hours coming from the 2019 Mac Pro (which I sold as soon as the M1 Max MBP came out, friggin' laptop ran circles around that thing.)

Nobody wants to hear about actual usage. It’s all about the spec sheet! If dedicated hardware makes things like video editing a breeze it doesn’t count because hypothetically somewhere someone has an issue that the number in a page is lower somewhere!

 

[HVDynamo]

Why are people hyping 3nm so much? I feel like when you look at it even on the Intel side, the Sandy Bridges lasted a LONG time because afterward you only got very minor IPC upgrades. That was what... 32nm? We had 4 GHz easy overclocks back then and when compared to more 6th, 7th, 8th gen Core processors were still able to keep up only with a minor disadvantage.

I think people are setting unrealistic expectations for M3 / 3nm. If you look at A-series CPUs, the advancements in processing power have long slowed down. We're reaching the point of only minor IPC improvements and are thermally limited. M2 uses more power than M1 and part of the performance advantage comes out to higher clocks and higher thermals. M3 isn't going to suddenly deliver +50% performance or thermals because of a process die shrink.

Yeah, I agree with you. Sure, the smaller node has the ability to help, but it really depends on how Apple decides to use that space too. Most likely in my mind is a 10-15% performance boost, and also some better power management to extend battery life a bit too. No way it's going to be +50% at this point. We are really starting to bump into the edge of what's possible on the Silicon process too so advancements have to come from other areas too. At some point we will have to get back to the idea that we need to actually optimize our software instead of just letting it run wild because there will always be faster computers around the corner.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

Oh my bad. I must have bypassed the maturity part of the requirements for posting in the forums.

I hope I don't get banned before you develop a sense of humor.

I have a sense of humor, I was trying to make a funny with that comment.

 

[dork]

considering M1 to M2 wasn't that much of an improvement then not sure why expecting the Max and Ultra to be big improvements per Core.

Who said I was expecting anything at all? I was just making an observation.

 

[AdamJD]

For those thinking through M2 Mac mini vs M2 Mac Studio
Some practical perspective on the M2 Pro Mac Mini with the M2 Mac Studio now out (as I'm thinking through my options and and convincing myself not to jump to the Studio out of excitement).

I'm in the returnable time period (within 90 days from where I bought it), so I can return and grab the Mac Studio M2. I just moved from a Mid 2014 MBP (I've managed to edit 4K still on that thing). I bought the base M2 Pro Mac Mini on sale for $1,049 + tax.

As exciting as the M2 Mac Studio is, looking at another ~$900 for running FCPx on mostly sub-30 minute work (with a good amount of plug-ins), image work, maybe streaming...some audio and branding stuff just feels a bit extra. My biggest concern is being at 16GB (read on). However, from what I'm hearing, the base M2 Pro Mac Mini will BEYOND have me covered. Staying with the pro mini leaves open multiple options:
1) a 2nd non-pro M2 Mac Mini (maybe as a dedicated streaming machine down the road),
2) Switching to an M3 Mac Mini (likely far earlier in the cycle), and
3) If the M2 Pro Mac mini feels restrictive later, an M3 (or beyond) Mac Studio in a year or 2 (instead of holding a machine I buy now for extra years - like with that MBP). At that point, the M2 Pro Mac Mini I just bought may be worth $700+ (looking at eBay...the 16GB M1 Mac Minis have sold for $550-$600 in the past few days).

Back to Memory (my main concern for this decision). As an old-school Mac user, it's hard to wrap my head around 16GB being enough. So, I'm doing my first real test right now. I've got Safari, Mail, Activity Viewer, FCPx, Motion, Pixelmator Pro and Compressor (just out of curiosity) launched (also...Crashplan, Streamdeck, Tot, Popclip, Dropbox and other bg tasks). Activity Viewer is hovering at under 12GB used. ZERO swap memory used and 86% of CPU unused. Interestingly, I just launched the App Store to download Logic Pro. While downloading, I went just over 12GB being used. With the App Store still running, I'm now back under 12GB. I haven't seen swap memory even engage.

What I find odd is after quitting all the main apps (Mail, FCPx, Motion, Pixelmator Pro, Compressor and the App Store), I'm still at just around 12GB of memory used. It looks like CrashPlan is using 1.26GB (feels pretty freaking high, but re-scanning right now). ~7GB shows App Memory. I'll restart Safari and edit this post just for reference.

....I went down to just under 6GB with Safari off. Oddly, Macrumor's site was showing "This webpage was reloaded because it was using significant energy"!

 

[dork]

(a) Are you talking about CPU or GPU?

(b) For CPU we knew that going in! The A15 is essentially the same IPC as the A14. And was designed as such; it was designed to be basically the same design as the A14 but everything optimized for significantly lower power while still achieving slightly higher frequency on the same process. This was valuable (battery life on A15 phones is noticeably longer) and part of the plan.
(There are a few very specific tweaks in A15 that help some specialized code, most notably javascript in Safari; but they are very specific.)

Same transfers to M2. It's basically M1 IPC, but a slightly boosted frequency.

None of this is catastrophic or an indication that Apple is running out of steam. The A15 should have been just an energy-saving tick to be followed by a performing-enhancing tock. It's quit possible that it was never supposed to even be in the M2; the next core would have done that job. But as I keep saying, covid screwed up the timelines and Apple was forced to scramble with what was available.

People seem to be really overreacting to my comment. As to (a) - my post specifically says processing - CPU. As to (b) - I'm not a student of chip architecture or performance, so I would've assumed newer chips would perform more operations per core, not merely add more cores to boost performance; hence my comment that I found it "Interesting." Where you inferred that I was suggesting that this is "catastrophic" or "an indication that Apple is running out of steam" I have no idea - I neither said nor implied any such things. As for the rest - thanks for the info. I find it interesting as well.

 

[dork]

I thought LG had only one 5K display they sell.

I looked on their website before posting and saw three. Might be the same panel with three different stands/mounts. I didn't didn't dig that deeply - I was only looking to check price in order to provide info to the person to whom I was responding.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

As a video editor, those built-in Afterburner decoders and encoders make these M chips FLY in comparison to Intel Xeon at least. You won't see that in Geekbench obviously, but that's an example that's literally saved me hundreds of hours coming from the 2019 Mac Pro (which I sold as soon as the M1 Max MBP came out, friggin' laptop ran circles around that thing.)

Right, but on an Intel system you'd probably be using the hardware decode/encode on your NVDA GPU, which would be faster still if you were using a high end card.