Wow, M1 Max Studio still killin' it in 2025

[3SQ Machine]

Picked up an M1 Max base model Mac Studio refurbished and, putting aside my surprise at its exceptional condition, this is thing still flies in 2025.

My primary use case is music production, with a smidge of some stable diffusion.

I loaded up one of my complicated projects that push the limits and it handled it with ease. It also "feels" just as snappy as my M4 Pro Macbook Pro. While I know there is "more" CPU performance in my M4 Pro, it is not noticeable in terms of project and plug-in loadings along with performing other general tasks.

Sure maybe if I was doing heavy video editing with after-effects and leading-edge AI image generation I would find the bottlenecks. BUT, for $700, this thing packs a lot of punch with port selection, storage, ram, and GPU than, say, the M4 Mac Mini.

I hope Apple maintains support for a long time on these M1-series chips. They really created an outstanding chipset and I would urge anyone looking for an Apple desktop to not overlook these older Mac Studios.

 

[Genelec8341]

My mini M1 16/512 runs the latest Logic Pro fine, but I'm always looking at the M1 Ultras with 32Gb or more ram on eBay. I wonder how much faster Stem Splitter would run on an Ultra, if at all.

 

[Ifti]

I have a M4 Max Studio, but previous to that I replaced a M1 Max MacBook Pro.
The MacBook Pro was still doing everything I needed (mainly Final Cut Pro use) and I was completely happy with it. My only reason for the change was because I wanted to go from a laptop to a desktop setup, considering the laptop never left my desk anyways, and I had a buyer for the laptop already. Otherwise I would have stuck with the M1 Max - its a great chip!

 

[Slam630]

My mini M1 16/512 runs the latest Logic Pro fine, but I'm always looking at the M1 Ultras with 32Gb or more ram on eBay. I wonder how much faster Stem Splitter would run on an Ultra, if at all.

Stem splitter is why I am thinking on upgrading my M1 studio to an M4. Also I'd like a bigger internal drive because my 512 is pretty full at this point

 

[BotchQue]

What do you mean by:

...with a smidge of some stable diffusion.

 

[3SQ Machine]

What do you mean by:

Main use case is music production but use Draw Things / Diffusion Bee for song/album still and video concepts.

 

[rb2112]

My primary use case is music production, with a smidge of some stable diffusion.

Given your uses I think you made the perfect purchase as far as value is concerned! I was also looking at that year model but my use case (local LLMs) eventually got me to buy newer for the speeds.

 

[3SQ Machine]

Given your uses I think you made the perfect purchase as far as value is concerned! I was also looking at that year model but my use case (local LLMs) eventually got me to buy newer for the speeds.

I haven't tried a local LLM on it yet, but it certainly has a modestly acceptable amount of ram--I'll have to try it out just to satiate my curiosity, although I'd rather just carry a lightweight model on my laptop around with me, as useless as some of these 4B models seem to be (so far).