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

Apple’s new prime tier Mac Studio, powered by the M3 Ultra chip, incorporates a lot computing horsepower that it’s by no means going to be on the radar of most tech fanatics — not to mention your common client. It begins at $3,999, however in the event you improve each spec to one of the 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 is just not a pc for the everyman. It’s a workstation for individuals who have already got an thought of simply the way it’ll make their lives simpler and extra productive. If that’s you, the funding might pay for itself in comparatively brief 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 check in Premiere Pro.

Even so, I’d steer the overwhelming majority of individuals searching for a desktop Mac to the M4 Mac Mini, and in the event you want some further wallop, the M4 Pro model of that machine has by no means damaged a sweat throughout my images workflows. Videographers and people doing resource-intensive 3D work could possibly be higher served with the M4 Max version of the brand new Studio; take a look at our MacE-book Pro assessment for a way of that chip’s blistering efficiency. It additionally comes at a much more typical $1,999 entry worth.

But even when I’m not the goal marketplace for the “Ultra” Studio, I nonetheless actually needed to get my arms on one after Apple launched it final week alongside a brand new MacE-book Air and sooner iPad Air. Who wouldn’t wish 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 Ultra with a 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU; you get a 32-core neural engine regardless. It’s additionally outfitted with 4TB of storage and 256GB of unified reminiscence — half the utmost quantity I discussed earlier.

Those are spectacular specs, but it surely’s necessary to notice that there are goal advantages to picking the M4 Max Mac Studio mannequin. It outpaces the M3 Ultra in single-core efficiency, which is probably the most important aspect in making most on a regular basis apps really feel “quick.” The day-to-day person expertise is tremendous responsive in each instances, which has been true of all current Apple Silicon merchandise. You don’t must spend anyplace near this a lot cash for a reliable, speedy Mac.

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

Around 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 in the event you’re plugging in full-time audio system that aren’t going anyplace. Like the MacE-book Pro, the Studio includes a UHS-II SDXC card reader, which is one thing I continuously 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 Ultra Studio (8 kilos); the latter tacks on almost two further kilos because it has a bigger cooling module inside, which is produced from copper in comparison with the Max’s aluminum heatsink.

Like its predecessors, the 2025 Mac Studio delivers breakneck efficiency whereas working “shockingly quiet,” as my former colleague Monica Chin wrote two years in the past. That stays simply as true at this time 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 Ultra chip is overkill for a lot of. If you want this degree 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 often crunching massive medical datasets? Maybe you need to use all these cores and reminiscence to their fullest potential. And as AI improvement continues to flourish, the kitted out configurations with 256GB or 512GB of reminiscence might show interesting to anybody considering working subtle LLM fashions domestically 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 check instances to gauge what it’s able to. In the weeks forward, I’ll even be trying to associates and consultants in different fields that may totally recognize the Studio’s capabilities to see what they consider its efficiency. If you’ve bought concepts or assessments you’d wish to see us run by way of, be at liberty to share them within the feedback.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge
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