Apple Announces New Mac Studio With M2 Max and M2 Ultra Chips

[philpalmiero]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more? I haven't even set it up yet. I am thinking I'd want more storage than the 512GB anyway.

 

[HiRez]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more?

Depends what your needs are, but I would probably do it. Worth selling an M1? Probably not. But if you can return it, it's a bit faster with a bit more future-proofing. That said, the M1 Studio is a fine machine and it's doubtful the M2 would feel massively different in use. Also, I'm surprised Costco would even be selling the Mac Studio.

 

[dgdosen]

I wonder if Apple will bump up the clock speeds on the beefier Studio or Pro...

 

[Ethosik]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more?

Personally? I would. But that is just me wanting to be on the latest. It is newer and MIGHT get an extra macOS version of support that the M1 won't.

 

[dgdosen]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more? I haven't even set it up yet. I am thinking I'd want more storage than the 512GB anyway.

I'd say yes if for any reason you'll want > 512GB in SSD space.

 

[philpalmiero]

Personally? I would. But that is just me wanting to be on the latest. It is newer and MIGHT get an extra macOS version of support that the M1 won't.

That is my worry too.

 

[HiRez]

I doubt they’ll be very good. My 2019 27-inch iMac with i5 9600K and 64gb of RAM still works fine. It ran me $3K. Apple will give me something like $200 for it. Granted, this is not an M1 Studio that’s a year or two old. But Apple trade-in values drop fast. Better off selling the older machine elsewhere.

It should be more than that? I just got $405 for a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro (32 GB, 512 GB) on an M2 Studio trade-in.

 

[Ethosik]

That is my worry too.

Who knows though, M1 and M2 might get dropped together in support. But its safer to assume M2 will get more support, especially if you can simply return it for refund and get the new model.

 

[Mr Dobey]

Fully expected the Mac Pro to feature M2 Extreme i.e. two M2 Ultras stitched together.

 

[ErneX]

Ordered a Studio M2 Max with 96GB RAM. They only let you select that amount of RAM on the one with 38 GPU cores btw.

 

[HiRez]

Fully expected the Mac Pro to feature M2 Extreme i.e. two M2 Ultras stitched together.

I'd guess that's coming at some point, but right now easier/cheaper for them to re-use the chips they already made for the Studio. At the moment, the Mac Pro seems to be more of a niche use case than it ever has been in light of the Mac Studio existing, and starting at $5K less. I'm a little surprised they even bothered to make it.

 

[AndyUnderscoreR]

Are these actually *cheaper* than the equivalent Mac Minis?

I've just specced out both with a 12 core, 32Mb ram, 1Tb SSD and 10gig Ethernet and in the UK Apple store the Studio is £2,299, but the Mini is £2,399.

For £100 less, the studio gets an 2 Max cpu not an M2 Pro, 30 GPUs instead of 19, the bigger case and more ports... am I missing something here?

 

[kuito]

Yep. I was so disappointed with the Mac Pro. Not only is it the SAME as the Mac Studio with SoC and RAM, but the price INCREASED! I thought the base price of the 2019 Mac Pro was a joke, now I am just laughing. $3,000. is PCIe really worth that much difference?

I know there is a VERY VERY long thread on the Mac Studio "loud", but does anyone have any information on the whine? Did Apple either silently address it with the M1 variants or was I just extremely unlucky that I had to go through 5 returns and STILL face the issue and just gave up?

I have a m1ultra Mac Studio and have never noticed a whine or *any* noise coming from it.

To be fair I am not in a recording studio or a situation where the ambient noise is silent, but I think with how much I do on mine I would have noticed an issue, but there hasn’t been one to speak of.

 

[kuito]

Like I have said, I would prefer a "loud" Mac over this very faint whine/whistle I hear non stop. That is why I was leaning on getting a Mac Pro with the better fan system. But NOT at that price!

Never noticed this.. so I’m guessing you might just be unlucky? Did you send it in for warranty?

 

[Ethosik]

I have a m1ultra Mac Studio and have never noticed a whine or *any* noise coming from it.

To be fair I am not in a recording studio or a situation where the ambient noise is silent, but I think with how much I do on mine I would have noticed an issue, but there hasn’t been one to speak of.

My parents and most of my friends don't either. I have very sensitive ears. And my head needs to be in a specific position (which is kind of default when looking at my monitor anyway). One of my friends hears it too. It is very very very VERY faint, but it is SO ANNOYING.

And my Mac Studio is on my left, but I hear the whine on my right ear. My left monitor is probably blocking it.

 

[kuito]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more? I haven't even set it up yet. I am thinking I'd want more storage than the 512GB anyway.

Yes I would do it esp since you haven’t set it up yet.

 

[kuito]

My parents and most of my friends don't either. I have very sensitive ears. And my head needs to be in a specific position (which is kind of default when looking at my monitor anyway). One of my friends hears it too. It is very very very VERY faint, but it is SO ANNOYING.

And my Mac Studio is on my left, but I hear the whine on my right ear. My left monitor is probably blocking it.

I’m sure you’ve thought about relocating it to a different position? Under the desk or something? Did apple not care to warranty it or did you just decide to live with it?

 

[Ethosik]

I’m sure you’ve thought about relocating it to a different position? Under the desk or something? Did apple not care to warranty it or did you just decide to live with it?

Yes, tried several. Nothing helps.

 

[HiRez]

Not sure why the Mac Mini and Mac Studio couldn't be designed to have fans only power on when you need it like the MacBook Pros. The M1 chips are incredibly efficient and when you are just booted up, doing some lower power tasks whether its email, web surfing, heck even just a YouTube video, playing music, messaging people, these are all tasks plenty of people engage in that don't need a fan.

I tax the memory of my MBP a lot for work but it's mostly just data crunching, documents, etc. The fans never spin up, but I most certainly see a huge difference between native silicon and my old Intel MBP. In fact I've only gotten my M1 Pro MBP to spin its fans up by actually running a benchmark to force it to heat up.

I have a 13" 2017 MacBook Pro and a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro. With both of them, the fans howl when it does anything, even just booting up. And god forbid you actually want to do something like a long Xcode build or 3D render on them. Just traded in the 15" for an M2 Mac Studio, and the 2017 was so bad (very slow and very loud) I ditched it for an M1 Air, which is great.

 

[HiRez]

Are these actually *cheaper* than the equivalent Mac Minis?

I've just specced out both with a 12 core, 32Mb ram, 1Tb SSD and 10gig Ethernet and in the UK Apple store the Studio is £2,299, but the Mini is £2,399.

For £100 less, the studio gets an 2 Max cpu not an M2 Pro, 30 GPUs instead of 19, the bigger case and more ports... am I missing something here?

Yes. I nearly bought an M2 Pro Mac Mini last week, but glad I waited. I needed the 32 GB RAM but that's an insane $400 upgrade (assuming it costs Apple about $10 to go from 16 to 32), and also wanted the 12-core M2. All that costs the same as a base M2 Mac Studio, which gives you all that and a lot more, the Mini pricing (especially upgrades) is really messed up. So yeah, I just ordered the M2 Studio instead.

 

[AndyUnderscoreR]

Yes. I nearly bought an M2 Pro Mac Mini last week, but glad I waited. I needed the 32 GB RAM but that's an insane $400 upgrade (assuming it costs Apple about $10 to go from 16 to 32), and also wanted the 12-core M2. All that costs the same as a base M2 Mac Studio, which gives you all that and a lot more, the Mini pricing (especially upgrades) is really messed up. So yeah, I just ordered the M2 Studio instead.

Pretty similar to my situation then. I think I'll be going for the Studio with 64Gb ram (32 was skimping a bit for some of the AfterEffects stuff I do).

 

[fromgophonetoiphone]

Yes. I nearly bought an M2 Pro Mac Mini last week, but glad I waited. I needed the 32 GB RAM but that's an insane $400 upgrade (assuming it costs Apple about $10 to go from 16 to 32), and also wanted the 12-core M2. All that costs the same as a base M2 Mac Studio, which gives you all that and a lot more, the Mini pricing (especially upgrades) is really messed up. So yeah, I just ordered the M2 Studio instead.

Yeah I remember pricing this out and when you go the M2 Pro route with a bit more than the 8GB base config, you start to get dangerously close to Mac Studio prices. I remember advising people--why not just wait for WWDC. Back then the rumors were a Mac Pro was for sure dropping and people were unsure of the Studio getting updated. I was unsure too but also felt that it was worth the wait. The engineering behind just upgrading the SoC is pretty minimal and it makes sense Apple did what they did with the Studio update. Now at least you get M2 Max to better justify the $1999 price versus whatever you upgrade your Mac Mini to--I remember pricing a $1899 config and hesitating a few times.

 

[pharellano]

Wish I could have waited for the M2 Mac Studio but my old iMac HD blew a few months ago and lost a fair amount of data even with backups so grabbed an M1 Mac Studio and happy I did-it is a fine machine and the M2 Mac Studio makes it even better. Just make sure you size your system for what you really need and let your peripheral external drives do the rest and you should be fine.

 

[darknyt]

I just bought the Mac Studio M1 at Costco for $1499. Do you think it is worth returning it to get the M2 version for $500 more? I haven't even set it up yet. I am thinking I'd want more storage than the 512GB anyway.

I am in the same boat but set mine up. I bought fully expecting this to happen but I look at it this way. I paid 75% of full MSRP for a machine that will perform at LEAST 75% as well as the new M2 (WWDC says UP to 25% faster which means not close for a lot of things). To me that’s fair and I doubt that theoretical 25% is with enough software for me to care about.

I agree you need more storage. But Apple SSD pricing is RIDICULOUS. I got a Samsung 4TB external SSD I will leave always connected and that reviewed well for this use. It cost me just north of $200. That would set you back $1,400 for an internal SSD.

I totally get the new machine envy. But unless there is something I’m missing, I think we just got a sweet discount on a great machine.

 

[dawnrazor]

Well I didn’t buy a M1 Ultra Mac Studio when it was announced because I wanted to see what Apple did with the Mac Pro, so kept my 2020 iMac going and have struggled with high resolution rendering since…

So now the M2 Ultra Mac Studio is a thing and a significant bump in spec… and what do you know along limps a brand new Mac Pro… which is incredibly underwhelming to look at…

So my decision is easy… new Mac Studio M2 Ultra…

However if I was coming from an Intel Mac Pro, I would have a number of PCI cards for I/O etc that I could use here… so the M2 Ultra Mac Pro might… might make sense… for me coming from an iMac with external raid storage and external I/O the Mac Pro makes ZERO sense…

Finally an informed decision can be made….