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A Maxed Out M3 Ultra Mac Studio Will Cost You $14,099

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Apple today announced refreshed Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra Apple silicon chips, and when configured with the highest specs, the faster M3 Ultra costs $14,099, which is $10,100 more than the starting price.

Mac-Studio-2025.jpg

Starting at $3,999, the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra comes with an Apple M3 Ultra chip with 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine, 96GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. When configuring the machine with the following highest specifications possible, the pricing breakdown is as follows:
  • Apple M3 Ultra chip with 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine: +$1,500
  • 512GB of unified memory: +$4,000
  • 16TB of storage: +$4,600
Customers can also purchase Final Cut Pro ($299.99) and/or Logic Pro ($199.99) at Apple's checkout, which if chosen would result in a cost totaling $14,598.98.

Apple says the M3 Ultra is the fastest Mac chip it has ever released, thanks to its strategy of fusing two M3 Max chips together using the company's "UltraFusion" technology. This makes the chip's specs double that of the M3 Max. The new Mac Studio is available to pre-order starting today, and it launches on Wednesday, March 12.

Article Link: A Maxed Out M3 Ultra Mac Studio Will Cost You $14,099
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/05/maxed-out-m3-ultra-mac-studio-14099/
That's pretty good. I figured, at $200 per 8gb of ram, that 515gb of RAM would cost roughly $12500.

I have an urge to get that much ram even tho I'm fine with 8gb. Just to see if my life would change. Must say no.
 
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Was this an after thought for the mac studio but looks like they put some thought into it or strategy to keep it apart from Mac pro perhaps? but then again we will have to see the benchmarks of an m3 ultra chip since we never had one, to the m4 max. Crazy morning as did not expect all the hardware all at once! the local LLMs are going to get a nice big boost with mac studio.
 
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With them recycling old chips (M3 Ultra vs M4 Max), I think I'll wait for the next generations (or is that earlier generation). Intermediate generation? I'm so confused.

Screen Shot 2023-01-23 at 12.06.29 PM.jpg
 
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Just for comparison, the Macintosh 512k was released in 1984 for $3200. That’s almost $10,000 in inflation-adjusted 2025 U.S. dollars.

Maxing out everything on this new Studio and adding in a screen isn’t that much more than the upgraded original Mac. Especially if you do something more reasonable like maxing out everything except the SSD and limit that to 4 TB. Then you are at $10,500. Or a 2 TB SSD puts you right at the inflation-adjusted Macintosh 512k price.
 
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I wonder how this machine compares to my gaming PC, which has an AMD 9800X3D and Radeon RX 7800XT and cost me about $1600 to build with 32GB of RAM and 2TB NVMe storage.

I know Macs are intended for different use cases and it's hard to compare directly, but has anyone compared the actual raw compute between the two worlds?
 
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I will likely have to buy one of these. I'm due for a new Mac and job wise and given the state of the country who knows when I will have the cash available again. So I guess I will have to jump in the next 6 months. Likely the last Mac I will need to buy for my professional life. I'm that old. And I still remember the loan I took out to buy a Mac IIsi - with monitor and printer. It was about the same as I will spend on a new Studio. Just gets you a lot more!
 
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I wonder if Apple is having fab problems, getting the RAM and SSD's attached to the mainboard properly. That's the only reason I can think of where they charge so much for it.
 
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Their storage prices are now beyond ridiculous. I had been planning on two mac upgrades this cycle, looking at the amount of money i'd have to throw away on their SSD pricing..... hard pass. Get rid of the finance guy as a CEO and we will talk again about buying new machines.
 
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dguisinger said:
Their storage prices are now beyond ridiculous. I had been planning on two mac upgrades this cycle, looking at the amount of money i'd have to throw away on their SSD pricing..... hard pass. Get rid of the finance guy as a CEO and we will talk again about buying new machines.
Click to expand...
I really wish Apple would just support mainstream NVMe storage.

The 2TB NVMe drive in my gaming PC, which is reasonably modern gen 4 tech, only cost me $129. If I run out of space I can spend another $129 and install a second one in another NVMe slot on the motherboard.

It's just comical how badly Apple pushes integration which *should* have a cost savings benefit but they still want to rip us off on storage. I love Apple stuff and will continue using their notebooks but it's utterly ridiculous seeing this storage pricing on a desktop system.
 
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This stat is useless because I don't think anybody will ever buy that config.
But I remember when the maxed out Mac Pro was like $50,000 in 2019.
 
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For that price/config, I’d want the Mac Studio to be autonomously mobile in order to vacuum my house, mow my lawn and play with my cat before needing to dock-charge.
 
HJM.NL said:
It’s called Timmy Intelligence and it excels in 💰 grabbing.
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He uses the Spirit Airlines model where they show you a starting price that looks great, but by the time you're done going through all the options, you end up spending more than a traditional airline ticket.
 
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Ouch, the storage and RAM prices are crazy (well to me anyway). I needed a Mac with lots of RAM so I bought a 2nd hand 2019 Mac Pro with 384GB RAM for £1450, which should keep me going until I buy one of these 2nd hand with 512GB RAM in a few years :)
 
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