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

[JimmyG]

Stuck with TB4 for the next 5 years?! Oofah. Old before its time.

No 8K/60P XDR announcement?! No 120fps display announcement?! Wow, what a disappointing day this turned out to be. Oh well.

 

[R3k]

Pathetic, no M3. Why would anybody spend the money on the pro with the same chip as the studio? Very disappointing.

Will the chips in both computers be clocked identically though? Perhaps the Mac Pro’s their architecture will allow the chip to be pushed harder.

 

[svish]

Happy to see the Mac Studio getting an update.

 

[designerdave72]

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.

I bought a 10/32 64gb M1 with ASD in November as my 2014 maxed out iMac was slowing down. It was inevitable that they would be upgraded but looking at the spec bump it’s only minor. ‘25% faster than M1’ is not a big deal but I did wish they offered the 96gb memory option on the M1.

 

[kirkster501]

In the UK they’ve added £100 to the base Max Studio price (about $135). Annoying and unjustified. Agree with other posts regarding the price of the SSD and memory upgrades; they are bonkers but Apple know that folks will pay it. Apple is a business after all….

 

[kirkster501]

I had a whiner M1 AS as well. Not even thinking about an M2 until I hear confirmation the noise isn’t present.

^^^^This.

 

[Biro]

I was thinking about going for a base Mac Studio with a 1TB SSD. But since my 2019 iMac is still working fine and Apple isn't going to give me much on trade in, I'm going to see how the M3 products shake out in 2024. Besides, where is the gen-two version of the Studio display? The first one has had its issues.

 

[mr.datsun]

at 7 grand probably not.

Prosumers will get the studio
Pros will get the Pro

pros will also get the studio. not all pros will need a Pro. There's no such thing a single kind of 'pro'.

 

[mr.datsun]

Just tell me they fixed the AWFUL whine/whistle with the updates to the Studio. I want to buy it, I need the RAM upgrade. But I don't want to keep going on with this whistle.

I imagine we'd might need to wait and see a tear-down from someone like the guys on Max Tech, to see whether the fan/cooling design has changed on these models.

 

[isdoo]

In the UK they’ve added £100 to the base Max Studio price (about $135). Annoying and unjustified. Agree with other posts regarding the price of the SSD and memory upgrades; they are bonkers but Apple know that folks will pay it. Apple is a business after all….

Welcome to UK pricing!

Although are you comparing VAT included as opposed to US + tax? (most business will get 20% VAT back)

 

[klky]

Just placed my order for an M2 Ultra and it arrives next week. Can't wait!

 

[CWallace]

To all those who ask "why would Apple make this?", Apple does not design their products in a vacuum. From the 2017 "Mea Culpa" media event that pre-announced the 2017 iMac Pro and 2019 Mac Pro, Apple noted they have a dedicated team of hardware and software engineers who work with their "most important" macOS professional customers. The customers who buy not one Mac Pro, but pallets of them and who have workflows that push the Mac's OS, applications and hardware well beyond what the average consumer, prosumer, professional and enthusiast does.

These are the people who provided the input into the 2023 Mac Pro design and helped directly shape the form it took when announced yesterday. They all likely didn't get everything they wanted, but they did get enough to commit to ordering pallet loads of them. And that is why Apple went forward with manufacturing it.

 

[kirkster501]

Welcome to UK pricing!

Although are you comparing VAT included as opposed to US + tax? (most business will get 20% VAT back)

The price in UK before for a stock M1 Max was £1999. The stock M2 Base Max is now £2099. VAT is same. Apple have inflated the price by £100 in our market.

Rip-off Britain we call it in these islands.

 

[isdoo]

Rip-off Britain we call it in these islands.

Indeed.....

 

[designerdave72]

The price in UK before for a stock M1 Max was £1999. The stock M2 Base Max is now £2099. VAT is same. Apple have inflated the price by £100 in our market.

Rip-off Britain we call it in these islands.

I noticed that also. The Max I bought in November totalled £2799 but if I had a similar configuration with the M2 and added 96gb it would be £3299. No point upgrading for '25% faster'!

 

[kirkster501]

..especially since in the US they left the price the same.

 

[kirkster501]

In noticed that also. The Max I bought in November totalled £2799 but if I had a similar configuration with the M2 and added 96gb it would be £3299. No point upgrading for '25% faster'!

I concur with that observation. If I already had an M1 Studio then I would be happy with that. A 25% improvement - on a machine that is already very fast - is meaningless and pointless to upgrade.

 

[CWallace]

The British Government has let the Pound decrease in value against the US Dollar for years, which is why UK prices for items indexed to the US Dollar (like the Mac Studio) has risen.

 

[dgdosen]

The British Government has let the Pound decrease in value against the US Dollar for years, which is why UK prices for items indexed to the US Dollar (like the Mac Studio) has risen.

I figure Apple's (business) mostly manages currency risk for the US and mostly for inventory. The world's finished goods buyers get to ride the roller coaster.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The Studio vs Pro price doesn't justify that massive price increase for the same chip.

They are comparing base model prices. The Pro only comes with the Ultra. The price they are quoting for studio is for the Max. The Pro starts out as a maxed out Studio (processor-wise anyway) so it kind of makes sense.

 

[Ethosik]

They are comparing base model prices. The Pro only comes with the Ultra. The price they are quoting for studio is for the Max. The Pro starts out as a maxed out Studio (processor-wise anyway) so it kind of makes sense.

No it’s the same config comparisons. Same setup but Max Pro is $3,000 more.

 

[CarAnalogy]

No it’s the same config comparisons. Same setup but Max Pro is $3,000 more.

Yikes ok you're right. I just looked at the store site. The way they said it in the presentation implied differently, or I suppose I just wanted to interpret it that way. Apparently the case and those PCI slots really do cost $3,000.

So I don't even want to know what they would charge for a graphics card. Assuming they even make any compatible. Of course they say it's already six times as powerful as the Intel Mac Pro with a graphics card. But then so is the Mac Studio.

This is making my head hurt. Good thing I wasn't going to buy either one of them anyway.

 

[Ethosik]

Yikes ok you're right. I just looked at the store site. The way they said it in the presentation implied differently, or I suppose I just wanted to interpret it that way. Apparently the case and those PCI slots really do cost $3,000.

So I don't even want to know what they would charge for a graphics card. Assuming they even make any compatible. Of course they say it's already six times as powerful as the Intel Mac Pro with a graphics card. But then so is the Mac Studio.

This is making my head hurt. Good thing I wasn't going to buy either one of them anyway.

If it was just $1,000 more than the studio I would get it no question. But $3,000?

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

With the announcement of the Back-to-school promotion I went to the Edu Store and configured an M2 Pro Mac mini vs. an M2 Max Mac Studio ...

2023 Mac mini

• Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
• 32GB unified memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• Back: Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑A ports, one 3.5 mm headphone jack

US $1,919 ($1,819 with $100 Back-to-school discount)

2023 Mac Studio

• Apple M2 Max with 12‑core CPU, 38‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
• 32GB unified memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• Front: Two USB-C ports, one SDXC card slot
• Back: Four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, one 10Gb Ethernet port, one 3.5 mm headphone jack

US $1,979

So even with the Back-to-school promo discount, the Studio gives you a faster M2 Max instead of an M2 Pro; a SoC with twice the GPU cores; plus the extra ports on the front not to mention the better internal cooling - for only US $160 more. I had been thinking about getting the new Mac mini but this is a no-brainer ...

 

[CWallace]

The above is why many of us (including myself) at the time were pretty convinced the Mac mini would not be getting an M2 Pro because the value proposition compared to a base Mac Studio favored the Studio since for the same price, the Max gives you 11 more GPU cores and double the bandwidth for that 32GB of RAM.

That being said, when Apple did actually release the Mac mini Pro, if the binned SoC and 16GB of RAM is sufficient for you, it is $700 cheaper and that is nothing to sneeze at.

I will probably just get the Studio since it would last me forever, but my needs do arguably align with the base Mac mini Pro and that savings would cover half the cost of a Studio Display.