Mac Studio M1 Max -> M2 Ultra?

[Cromulent]

I have a Mac Studio M1 Max with 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. I'm considering the potential upgrade to M2 Mac Studios next year. One thing I've realised about the Mac Studio is that I need much more space than I currently have, so when I upgrade to a newer model, I'm going to ensure I get the 2TB model. Furthermore, having more RAM and CPU power would help a lot.

So do you think upgrading an M1 Max with 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD to an M2 Ultra with 64GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD would be a decent upgrade?

 

[Pressure]

It's your money and if you can swing it it's an awesome upgrade. Especially if you can use the extra power, over 3 times the GPU power and more than twice the CPU power (if the rumours are true).

In the meantime you have spare TB ports you can use to attach NVMe SSDs.

 

[Diskutant]

We don't know anything about the M2 Ultra yet.
Ask again when it got announced or better when it's released.

 

[wen_wen]

Looks like no M2 Ultra for Mac Studio this year.
M2 Extreme (4 chiplets of M2 Max) was cancelled, and M2 Ultra will only be available for Mac Pro (hopefully later this month)

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Personally, I have a Mac Studio M1 Max 32 GPU and I will wait until the M3 is released.
And i will choose for at least 2 TB because of the much longer lifespan of these SSDs.

 

[transmaster]

Personally, I have a Mac Studio M1 Max 32 GPU and I will wait until the M3 is released.
And i will choose for at least 2 TB because of the much longer lifespan of these SSDs.

I came from 35+ years in the PC world. The biggest trouble I had was comparing the hotrod AMD machines I was assembling and the M1 processors. Saying the M1 is more powerful than an i9 Intel is too simplistic a comparison. Finally it was Alex Lindsay on Macbreak Weekly who filled in the info I needed to make my decision. What I ended up with was the same configuration you have. It was $1200+ bucks to upgrade to the base Ultra version. It was Alex long experience with Mac Mini server farms that he uses in CGI rendering that allowed me to make the best choice. I went with the 1TB internal and added a 14TB external HDD for extra storage. Applications and the macOS stuff lives on the internal drive all of my media files are located on the external HDD. Large external SSD's are still very pricey so I opted for an HDD. The thing to do with these large capacity HDD if you are not using a hotswap NAS is to change them out every 3 years or so. Hopefully very large capacity SSD's will come down in price.

 

[loby]

Looks like no M2 Ultra for Mac Studio this year.
M2 Extreme (4 chiplets of M2 Max) was cancelled, and M2 Ultra will only be available for Mac Pro (hopefully later this month)

Not expecting Mac Studio to be upgraded anytime this year. Seriously doubt in the fall since Mac Pro has not come out yet. Will have to wait to decide like the rest of us.

I think the industry is watching to see what Mac Pro will be like. That will determine what happens to Mac Studio.

 

[Klae17]

Why do we think it won't be updated this year?

 

[Pressure]

Why do we think it won't be updated this year?

Some feel like it would make a Mac Pro debuting with only an M2 Ultra seem weak if the M2 Extreme is cancelled as some rumours would have us believe 🤷🏼‍♂️

Or they may entirely forego M2 and wait for M3.

 

[transmaster]

When I was assembling PC's I never opted for the latest and greatest in CPU's and motherboards it was so much cheaper plus these machine were still very powerful. When I picked out my Mac Studio I configured a machine I know will do the job for many years to come. I am going to address the 7+TB of media files I have on 6 HDD's, and 5 SDD's in NTFS with a Synology NAS.