I recently had the opportunity check out Apple’s new studio display. It’s nice, even if the webcam has given you stomach pain so far and doesn’t deliver what Apple promises. In this context, I had the opportunity to try Mac Studio. Unlike devices that have “Pro” in their name at Apple, but which are liked by almost all customer groups, “the name Mac Studio really says it all for me”, so that’s already a preliminary conclusion.
Since moving to its own chips, Apple has done so many things that it’s hard to put into words. Purely in terms of performance, it is difficult to compare, because the Intel Mac now seems incredibly outdated, loud and, most importantly, slow. Unsurprisingly, Mac Studio has a plethora of options, all depending on your use case and budget. You can get the M1 Max as a chip with a 10-core CPU and up to 32-core GPU, and the M1 Ultra with 20 CPU cores and up to 64 GPU cores. M1 Ultra consists of two M1 Max chips. It then also creates twice the memory bandwidth of the M1 Max which is 400 GB/s.
A performance monster is no exaggeration. Apple has two base versions starting at €2299 with the M1 Max and €4600 with the M1 Ultra. As you can see, there is no comparison with Mac mini. In terms of connection technology, Apple has also thought through the most important thing, but potential buyers should be careful here, because there are differences.
The M1 Max has two USB-C ports (up to 10 Gb/s) on the front, while the M1 Ultra has two Thunderbolt 4 ports that provide speeds up to 40 Gb/s. Identical on both: connections on the rear panel and an SDXC (UHS-II) card slot on the front panel. The rear panel features four Thunderbolt 4 ports supporting: Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40 Gb/s), DisplayPort, USB 4 (up to 40 Gb/s), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gb/s), two USB-A ports (up to 5 Gb/s), HDMI port, 10 Gb Ethernet and 3.5 mm headphone jack.
You can actually use them – it would be silly with Mac Studio if it wasn’t. In the description, Apple calls it a “3.5mm headphone jack with enhanced support for high-impedance headphones.” You are installing a solution that is also used on the MacBook Pro (14-inch 2021) and MacBook Pro (16-inch 2021). The 3.5mm headphone jack is equipped with a constant current sensor and adaptive voltage output. Your Mac can detect the connected device’s impedance and adjust its output to connect low-impedance headphones, high-impedance headphones, and line-level audio devices.
When users connect headphones with an impedance of less than 150 ohms, up to 1.25V RMS is applied to the headphone jack. For headphones with an impedance between 150 and 1000 ohms, 3 Vrms is applied to the headphone jack. This can make an external headphone amplifier redundant. With impedance detection, adaptive output voltage, and a built-in D/A converter that supports sampling rates up to 96kHz, users can also enjoy full-resolution, high-quality audio directly through the headphone jack. How to set the sample rate for the headphone jack described here. Otherwise, wireless connections are included: 802.11ax WLAN 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
As an Intel iMac user, I can tell that its fan was clearly audible during certain tasks, from opening 30+ tabs in Chrome, video editing, handbrake, gaming, and more. Mac Studio also has a fan and you can hear it too. I felt like it was basically always running at low revs. Despite the very (!) sharp ears, this was never a problem. Even with computationally intensive tasks, none of these helicopter fans are.
Users of this Mac should be particularly interested in the fact that it will consume significantly less power than an Intel Mac to perform high-performance tasks. The new Mac Studio draws a maximum of 370 watts from the can. Mac Pro easily allows for three times more.
What I can personally say about myself: Mac Studio lived up to its promises in a few weeks of use, even more. use yourself. I’m also not trying to generate 1000 use cases considering all niche options – it also doesn’t make sense given the different configurations of Mac Studio.
Therefore, I would also recommend checking what users of different configurations have seen so far. for experience. Because Mac Studio probably won’t be able to use its potential for most people. It’s aimed at photo, video, and music creatives, as well as people who can exercise their thumb and forefinger enough to simply place the device on a table.
In many forums, I’ve been following posts and private conversations with creatives, developers, and companies that need to be frugal. In the end, for many it was like this: You paid for the purchase of the device in a few months, because you saved numerous hours of work with “compiling / calculating / whatever.” Of course, this is a calculation that doesn’t work for many people, as they don’t run out of Mac Studio at all. I noticed that many “digital workers” were amazed at how much they could get done on this computer in a short amount of time. There were even critics about it. The new Mac Studio breaks workflows. Due to the “too short” waiting time, users will not be able to play games on their mobile phones or watch YouTube videos.
In the end, you can congratulate Apple on the transition to its own chips, because you can sell unprecedented power to your users. On the other hand, Mac Studio, of course, is not free from shortcomings, although they are, as always, mentioned only subjectively. It’s not cheap, and the positive aspect, the compact, nice design, means it can’t be expanded. A bit like iMac. What you buy, you must keep.
Personally, it was great for me to work with Mac Studio, in my opinion, the most beautiful Mac – and the most powerful and compact computer in symbiosis, which I have ever worked with in my life. Mac Studio is an impressive machine. Compact, surprisingly quiet, and extremely energy efficient, for such a powerful computer, this is a huge achievement.
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