Mac Studio announced - Apple's most powerful computer yet

[jamcat]

Apple has announced a brand-new device at its March Event, the Mac Studio, a compact computer that's aimed at creative professionals, and it comes with the new M1 Ultra chip (or the M1 Max).

Allowing users to create the "studio of their dreams", the new Mac Studio looks like a beefed-up Mac mini with some seriously powerful specifications.

Not only is this a very powerful PC, the Mac Studio offers a huge amount of connectivity, including four Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A ports, and can support four new Pro Display XDR monitors and a 4K TV as well.

This news is breaking...

Price and availability
The Mac Studio starts at a hefty $1,999 for the model with the M1 Max, certainly a pricey prospect.

Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with the new M1 Ultra chip, 64GB of unified memory and 1TB SSD will cost a huge $3,999. This could put a lot of people off.

It's available to pre-order from today, and will ship March 18. If you can afford it.

Performance
The Mac Studio is 50% faster than the MacBook Pro with M1 Mac, and 3.4 faster graphics than the most powerful iMac, according to Apple.

It's also apparently 80% faster than a Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, and can support up to 18 streams of 8K ProRess video. This promises to be an extremely powerful little computer.

Apple claims it will "change everything", which is certainly a bold statement. But if performance holds up, then this could be a very interesting device.

Specifications
The Mac Studio comes with a choice of the powerful M1 Max (found in the newest MacBook Pro 16-inch and MacBook Pro 14-inch laptops), or the new M1 Ultra, which is essentially two M1 Max chips connected together, which will offer some incredibly impressive performance.

This means it can come with up to a 20-core CPU and 64-core GPU, and supports up to 128GB of unified memory.

Memory bandwidth is also extremely fast, with up to 800GB/s, and also comes with up to 8TB of SSD storage.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... ar-AAUNo3G

[Jolaff]

viewtopic.php?t=579005

[jamcat]

viewtopic.php?t=579005

That thread is locked now, but this one is still open...

So, I'm leaning towards the Ultra with 64 GB RAM and at least 2TB storage, but maaaaybe 4. I'll have to figure out just how much storage I really need onboard, particularly for samples. I've moved away from samples as much as possible though, opting for physically modeled instruments such as MODO DRUM, Pianoteq, and SWAM.

Since I use a lot of physical modeling, I really want as many CPU cores as possible for stuff like entire string sections made up of individual SWAM soloists. So that could easily be 50 instances just for strings.

[Synth Master Jedi]

I'm just curious if anybody has been able to order one and be able to select in store pick up?

I'm not sure if it's because of my location, but I can only seem to get it shipped and I'm not too keen on that, since I do not trust the shady people in my area or the delivery services.

I would much prefer to just order online and then pick it up in store or have it shipped to the store.

Apple stores are everywhere surrounding me, there's like 10 of them within a very short distance, and none offers in store pickup?

My local Walgreens offers in store pickup, surely Apple can too.

[FapFilter]

I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the dust settles a bit.
I think it has been the same with the M1 Pro and Max MBPs and probably other Apple stuff too when preorders started.

Not sure about your area, but i just checked out of curiosity and at least for me, delivery for the base models would be mid April for the Max and mid May for the Ultra, so you'd probably have to wait a bit anyway

[Synth Master Jedi]

I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the dust settles a bit.
I think it has been the same with the M1 Pro and Max MBPs and probably other Apple stuff too when preorders started.

Not sure about your area, but i just checked out of curiosity and at least for me, delivery for the base models would be mid April for the Max and mid May for the Ultra, so you'd probably have to wait a bit anyway

I see. That's ok I guess, because there's nothing that anybody can do about that I suppose.

We'll probably be seeing a ton of tests and people making all sorts of youtube videos in about a week's time from now, from the first people who get their hands on them.

I can wait a little bit, my current machine is still working fine.

[sQeetz]

I’m kinda settled with my MBP 13” right now. It’s plenty powerful for the shit I need. It could last me until M3…ish comes along. But if I was to buy a station right now, I would opt for the ultra. I don’t want my setup to be desktop only, though, so I’ll wait for what AS has to offer for the MacBook in the future

[jamcat]

I'm just curious if anybody has been able to order one and be able to select in store pick up?

I'm not sure if it's because of my location, but I can only seem to get it shipped and I'm not too keen on that, since I do not trust the shady people in my area or the delivery services.

I would much prefer to just order online and then pick it up in store or have it shipped to the store.

Apple stores are everywhere surrounding me, there's like 10 of them within a very short distance, and none offers in store pickup?

My local Walgreens offers in store pickup, surely Apple can too.

This is partly because they’re not available in stores yet. And even when they are available, the selection will probably be limited to only the two standard configurations. That’s how it was when I got my MacBook Pro. I had to have it delivered because I upgraded the RAM and SSD.

[DJ Warmonger]

Benchmarks so far look good compared to top PC rigs today, finally Apple is getting somewhere with this whole M1 thing.

[nix808]

yeah commercially speaking

the intrinsic machine code may be efficient

[Synth Master Jedi]

This is partly because they’re not available in stores yet. And even when they are available, the selection will probably be limited to only the two standard configurations. That’s how it was when I got my MacBook Pro. I had to have it delivered because I upgraded the RAM and SSD.

I see. I wasn't expecting them to have all sorts of custom configs available in the stores, so it makes sense that the base models are probably going to be the main options available in store but I was maybe hoping that there was an option to get the custom config delivered to the store, so that a customer could go pick it up, but it's all good, I'll just come up with a different plan and I'll eventually manage to somehow get my hands on one.

Maybe I'll just try my luck one day and walk into an Apple store when these machines are released and maybe one of the larger Apple stores might stock a few different configs. If they don't, then no big deal, as it will only have taken a few minutes to find out.

I might try the Fifth Avenue NYC Apple store. Perhaps they might stock a few different configs since it's a flagship store.

[Jolaff]

... but I was maybe hoping that there was an option to get the custom config delivered to the store,

I bought my refurbish 2015 MBP that way (delivered to the store) ... For my M1 i'm not sure if that option had completely disappear or maybe if you order it with the delivery option you will be ask later in the process if you want to send it to the store...

[Synth Master Jedi]

I bought my refurbish 2015 MBP that way (delivered to the store) ... For my M1 i'm not sure if that option had completely disappear or maybe if you order it with the delivery option you will be ask later in the process if you want to send it to the store...

That’s good to know, thanks.

So at least in the past the option was available, so I’ll keep my eyes on the website and see if things change or if it becomes an option.

[jamcat]

I bought my refurbish 2015 MBP that way (delivered to the store) ... For my M1 i'm not sure if that option had completely disappear or maybe if you order it with the delivery option you will be ask later in the process if you want to send it to the store...

Did you trade your 2015 in?
I bought a new old stock 2016 15" in 2018 for a good price and was able to get half of what I paid back in trade-in.

That was actually my first laptop that was still functional at the time that I got a new one, and I had it about as long as the others, so cost-wise, it ended up being like buying a budget PC laptop.

[Jolaff]

I bought my refurbish 2015 MBP that way (delivered to the store) ... For my M1 i'm not sure if that option had completely disappear or maybe if you order it with the delivery option you will be ask later in the process if you want to send it to the store...

Did you trade your 2015 in?
I bought a new old stock 2016 15" in 2018 for a good price and was able to get half of what I paid back in trade-in.

That was actually my first laptop that was still functional at the time that I got a new one, and I had it about as long as the others, so cost-wise, it ended up being like buying a budget PC laptop.

I paid like 2500 can$ + 15% taxes and sold it perfectly clean 5-6 years later to a friend 900 can$... so it costs me 3-400$/year