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Mac Studio for the Long Haul?

Tempest2084 said:
How loud is the fan on the studio? I've heard the Mini is pretty quiet but since the Studio has a more powerful processor and more venting I'm wondering if it will be loader even at idle.
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Never heard any noise whatsoever from my M4 Max Studio.
 
maflynn said:
The studio will give you more longevity, but if you exlcude gaming, the mini will be fine. If you do plan on gaming then the studio is the machine for you.
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I'm not much of a computer gamer anymore, I usually game on consoles but as I'm not getting into the next generation of consoles I might actually game on my computer for the handful on new games I want to play.

I'm also not into AI or LLM stuff now, but who can say if it will suddenly become important to me in the future?
 
FatLouie said:
I have yet to hear the fan on my Studio M4 Max, 36GB memory, 1 TB. Now, I don't beat it to death with heavy video editing. Still, it is more than I need, but I buy more for future use and life span.

If you get a Studio, I would suggest getting this stand as well: Spigen Studio Stand

You can check Amazon for other options for a stand as well.
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What he said.
No noise heard from my M4 Max 36/512. Heaviest load is Handbrake.
I have that stand also.
 
Tempest2084 said:
I'm not much of a computer gamer anymore, I usually game on consoles but as I'm not getting into the next generation of consoles I might actually game on my computer for the handful on new games I want to play.

I'm also not into AI or LLM stuff now, but who can say if it will suddenly become important to me in the future?
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The studio has more head room to grow and gives you options, personally I prefer the Studio but your use case is perfect for the mini
 
Tempest2084 said:
Ok another question for everyone. What issues might I run into if I use a Studio as a Plex Server in addition to my main computer? Mainly I'm curious about sleep mode issues. I know in the power settings you can do things like Wake on LAN, Never Sleep Hard Drives (for my external storage) and the like. But from what I'm reading either I'd have to always have the Studio running and never put it in sleep mode or let it sleep normally and use an app from my iphone to wake it up via Wake on LAN (Plex apparently can't do this itself for some reason). Normally I'd say just let the Studio run all the time since newer hardware is way more efficient than the older stuff I'm used to, but I fear that running 24/7 will cause the Studio to wear out much faster so I think I'd have to play with the Sleep on LAN function.


Of course having external HDDs spinning 24/7 will eventually cause them to prematurely wear out too so the whole issue may be moot anyway.
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Now this is getting interesting for me.

My Studio used to be set to sleep. Sometimes it would be very warm to borderline hot. In addition I would see a notification stack about "Eject Drive X before disconnecting". However, that wasn't really feasible because programs running would be accessing the external SSDs. Every 1 to 2 weeks I would have some issue and have to restart either the TS5 or the Studio. Sometimes the kbd would be unresponsive (and its plugged in), sometimes the 3rd monitor would be inactive.

Now some of this is my setup. Since I have only 512GB internal and I can use externals just as fast with TB4, I only use the internal SSD for the OS and app installs. Everything else uses 1 of 2 SSDs. Slow storage is on external HDDs (and Time Machine backups).

However, if you are going to use it as a Plex Server, I don't think you want the mac sleeping. I could be wrong there. My Plex libraries are on a Synology NAS, which is also the Plex Server. I am going to move the server over to a Shield Pro soon. I run into transcoding timeouts on some movies. Mostly H265 ones. Some that are less than 2 GB in size. Plex also dropped support for some codecs.

Anyways, its been a week after disabling sleep, the Studio isn't getting very warm and things seem smooth so far.
 
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EdwardC said:
Never heard any noise whatsoever from my M4 Max Studio.
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Neither have I. Even when I know it's being pushed hard(ish), it remains completely silent and cool to the touch. I'm not doing 3 hour renders or anything like that, but periodic bursts of full CPU and GPU activity in OsirixMD for some 3D renders off of CT scan data and still completely silent.
 
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Tempest2084 said:
I don't do anything taxing on memory or CPU like playing with AI, but I would like to buy a computer that I can keep for 10 years or so.
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Why 10 years? Why not 5 or 15?

IMHO: Spend less to buy the mini, upgrade sooner.

10 years is a long time and you will see massive improvements in:
  • ui responsiveness
  • storage speed
  • network speed
  • graphics performance
inside of 3-5 years. Even base mini in 4-5 years time will significantly outperform the 2026 Mac Studio in the things you're likely going to be doing with it given your original post. Especially if it involves anything to do with wireless networking, bluetooth or ai/graphics.

Replacing at say 5 ish will mean you keep software support as well which is vital for security updates, especially with what is coming with AI automated malware generation becoming a thing.

I can not seriously suggest anyone keep running a thing connected to the internet without software update support, and you will not have that anywhere near year 10.
 
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Tempest2084 said:
I'm also not into AI or LLM stuff now, but who can say if it will suddenly become important to me in the future?
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This is another reason to spend less and upgrade more frequently (instead of trying to push a machine too long). Buying for 10 years, you have NO IDEA what we will all be needing computers to do at that point. You might not even need one by then (maybe your phone will do enough and plug into peripherals) and the extra you spent today on a beefier machine ends up pointless.

Spending less more frequently gives you more opportunities to re-evaluate based on how the industry changes.


example:
M4 generation to M5 generation = 4x speed improvement in prompt pre-processing for AI.

We're at a tipping point for tech right now after a long period (I'd argue, ~1.5-2 decades**) of "same thing just a bit faster"; AI, augmented reality, system agents to help look after background tasks, etc. are all coming and there will be massive improvements in how new machines handle these things in the coming decade.



edit:
** not even joking, computers have (had) been "good enough" for the basic stuff most people do for 15-20 years now, hence you getting 10 years out of your old machine.

I genuinely think the next 5-10 years will be very different, and that trying to plan for 10 year machine life right now is a mistake.

I've been in the industry since the 90s and it really feels like we're coming into a new period of significant advance, much like we were between say 1990 and 2000 (where CPU speeds went from say 50mhz to >1000mhz, graphics went from software 3d rendering to GPUs, audio went from single channel or PC beeper to fully digital music, video went from crappy 240p real video to 1080p h.264, etc.).

The 1990s decade for tech advance was NUTS. I think we're seeing that sort of tech advance again - after consumer grade gear being stuck on quad cores for a decade+, core counts have exploded. GPU power has exploded, neural cores now exist, etc.

The mid 2000s to say 2020-2023 ish was very stagnant in terms of both performance improvements and as a result actual new things to do with a machine. That's different now.


Same advice above applies if you were looking to buy a PC as well, this isn't apple specific advice.
 
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Yeah i'm in same boat I'm looking to replace my PC entirely with a Mac. Studio. Granted the M4 Max MBP 16" which i have is seriously impressive the only partial downside is it DOES get hot

which the studio will have an advantage of that's tempting me - virtually zero fans and huge ass heatsink [both the alum fin that's super large and alum exterior] id hope they put a M6 Max. in it or at least M5 Max because the M5 Max performance gain is seriously promising [i don't regret my M4 Max in anyway] but id like a standalone computer for the home use.
 
I bought the M2 Mac Studio Max over the M2 Mac mini Pro because the Studio was actually cheaper when configured with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

I don't really need a new Mac Studio, but if Apple keeps the price of the M5 Mac Studio Max at the same $1999* as the M4 Max model, I will buy it to future-proof myself.

I would probably be happy with a binned M5 Pro Mac mini and it would save me $600 over the base Mac Studio, but I need the extra TB5/USB-C/USB-A ports on the Studio and purchasing a Satechi Thunderbolt 5 hub would eat more than half that savings. So I just prefer having it all in one place.


* - I could see them bump the base storage to 1TB and increase the price from $1999 to $2199, but I would be getting a 1TB configuration so I would be paying that price if 512GB is stock.
 
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CWallace said:
I bought the M2 Mac Studio Max over the M2 Mac mini Pro because the Studio was actually cheaper when configured with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.

I don't really need a new Mac Studio, but if Apple keeps the price of the M5 Mac Studio Max at the same $1999* as the M4 Max model, I will buy it to future-proof myself.

I would probably be happy with a binned M5 Pro Mac mini and it would save me $600 over the base Mac Studio, but I need the extra TB5/USB-C/USB-A ports on the Studio and purchasing a Satechi Thunderbolt 5 hub would eat more than half that savings. So I just prefer having it all in one place.


* - I could see them bump the base storage to 1TB and increase the price from $1999 to $2199, but I would be getting a 1TB configuration so I would be paying that price if 512GB is stock.
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Similarly, I own the M2 Mac Studio. I was not planning to upgrade just yet initially, but I need more internal space than the 2TB I originally bought, and I frequently go past 32gb of RAM.

I can wait, but the RAM shortage and pricing is worrying me. If they keep the pricing the same as they did largely for the MacBook Pros, I will likely take the plunge and upgrade early to be good for a few years while this shortage hopefully works itself out.
 
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