Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) first look: a weekend with an $8,000 powerhouse

Apple’s new high tier Mac Studio, powered by the M3 Extremely chip, comprises a lot computing horsepower that it’s by no means going to be on the radar of most tech fans — not to mention your common shopper. It begins at $3,999, however when you improve each spec to the very best on provide (together with an astonishing 512GB of unified reminiscence), you land at a mind-boggling $14,099.

As the value makes clear, the Mac Studio isn’t a pc for the everyman. It’s a workstation for individuals who have already got an concept of simply the way it’ll make their lives simpler and extra productive. If that’s you, the funding may pay for itself in comparatively quick order with sooner exports and extra accomplished initiatives. Time is cash, in any case. And this factor does scream. As only one instance, it’s the primary Mac to interrupt the one minute barrier on our long-running 4K export take a look at in Premiere Professional.

Even so, I’d steer the overwhelming majority of individuals looking for a desktop Mac to the M4 Mac Mini, and when you want some additional wallop, the M4 Professional model of that machine has by no means damaged a sweat throughout my images workflows. Videographers and people doing resource-intensive 3D work might be higher served with the M4 Max version of the brand new Studio; try our MacBook Professional assessment for a way of that chip’s blistering efficiency. It additionally comes at a much more typical $1,999 entry value.

However even when I’m not the goal marketplace for the “Extremely” Studio, I nonetheless actually needed to get my arms on one after Apple launched it final week alongside a brand new MacBook Air and sooner iPad Air. Who wouldn’t need to kick the tires on a pc like this? Apple despatched me a Mac Studio that, as configured, sells for $8,099. It’s the higher-spec M3 Extremely with a 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU; you get a 32-core neural engine regardless. It’s additionally geared up with 4TB of storage and 256GB of unified reminiscence — half the utmost quantity I discussed earlier.

These are spectacular specs, but it surely’s essential to notice that there are goal advantages to picking the M4 Max Mac Studio mannequin. It outpaces the M3 Extremely in single-core efficiency, which is probably the most essential factor in making most on a regular basis apps really feel “quick.” The day-to-day consumer expertise is tremendous responsive in each circumstances, which has been true of all latest Apple Silicon merchandise. You don’t need to spend wherever near this a lot cash for a reliable, speedy Mac.

Except for substantial multi-core positive aspects, stepping as much as the Extremely tier nets you some I/O benefits as properly. The 2 frontside ports provide Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and, theoretically, information switch speeds of as much as 120Gb/s on the M3 Extremely Studio. In the event you go for the Max, you simply get a pair of standard 10Gb/s USB 3 ports up entrance. The rear of the Studio contains 4 Thunderbolt 5 ports irrespective of which chip you select, so it’s primarily a query of whether or not you require peak efficiency out of each accessible port. In case your work requires an abundance of exterior shows, it’s additionally price realizing that the Extremely Studio helps as much as eight shows, whereas the M4 Max mannequin tops out at 5.

Round again you’ll additionally discover two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, 10-gigabit ethernet, and a 3.5mm audio jack. On the Mac Mini, the three.5mm jack is up entrance, which is extra handy for headphones, however much less so when you’re plugging in full-time audio system that aren’t going wherever. Just like the MacBook Professional, the Studio encompasses a UHS-II SDXC card reader, which is one thing I consistently miss on the Mini. If cash have been no object, would I improve for an SD card slot? It’s not out of the query.

There stays a noticeable weight distinction between the M4 Max (6.1 kilos) and M3 Extremely Studio (8 kilos); the latter tacks on almost two additional kilos because it has a bigger cooling module inside, which is constituted of copper in comparison with the Max’s aluminum heatsink.

Like its predecessors, the 2025 Mac Studio delivers breakneck efficiency whereas operating “shockingly quiet,” as my former colleague Monica Chin wrote two years in the past. That is still simply as true immediately because it was then. In a number of days of testing, this factor has laughed at my Lightroom edits, made fast work of Adobe’s AI noise discount and different results, and I’ve by no means a lot as heard any fan noise.

The M3 Extremely chip is overkill for a lot of. In the event you want this stage of energy, you already know precisely the way you’ll get probably the most from it. It’s for visible results artists and animators. It’s for professionals doing bold audio and video manufacturing work. Are you recurrently crunching huge medical datasets? Perhaps you need to use all these cores and reminiscence to their fullest potential. And as AI growth continues to flourish, the kitted out configurations with 256GB or 512GB of reminiscence may show interesting to anybody eager about operating refined LLM fashions regionally on their machine.

I’ve solely had our Mac Studio assessment unit for a number of days, so for now I’m offering the same old benchmarks and setting it up for a few of these LLM take a look at circumstances to gauge what it’s able to. Within the weeks forward, I’ll even be trying to mates and consultants in different fields that may totally respect the Studio’s capabilities to see what they consider its efficiency. In the event you’ve acquired concepts or assessments you’d wish to see us run by, be at liberty to share them within the feedback.

Pictures by Chris Welch / The Verge
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