Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) First Look: a weekend with a power of $ 8,000

The new Apple’s first Mac studio, fueled by the ultra M3 chip, contains so much computer power that it will never be on the radar of most technology enthusiasts – not to mention your average consumer. It starts at $ 3,999, but if you improve all the specifications to the best proposed (including an amazing 512 GB of unified memory), you land at a pitch $ 14,099.

As the price shows, the Mac Studio is not a computer for the Everyman. It is a workstation for those who already have an idea of ​​how it will make their lives easier and more productive. If you are, the investment could be paid for itself in a relatively short order with faster exports and more completed projects. Time is money, after all. And that thing screams. For example, this is the first mac to break the one minute barrier during our long -standing 4K export test in Premiere Pro.

Even so, I directed the vast majority of people who should buy an office mac at M4 Mac MiniAnd if you need an additional Wallop, the M4 PRO version of this machine has never been sweating during my photography workflows. Videographers and those that do 3D work with high intensity of resources could be better served with the M4 Max edition of the new studio; check Our MacBook Pro review For an idea of ​​the puffed performance of this chip. It also has a much more conventional entry price of $ 1,999.

But even if I am not the target market of the studio “Ultra”, I really wanted to get my hands on it once Apple presented it last week A new MacBook Air And faster iPad air. WHO born Do you want to kick the tires on a computer like this one? Apple sent me a Mac studio which, as configured, sells $ 8,099. This is the ultra M3 of higher specification with a 32 core CPU and a GPU with 80 cores; However, you get a 32 core neural engine. It is also equipped with 4 storage to and 256 GB of unified memory – half of the maximum quantity I mentioned earlier.

These are impressive specifications, but it is important to note that there are objective advantages to choose the M4 Max Mac studio model. It exceeds the M3 Ultra in monocre performance, which is the most critical element for most everyday applications to feel “fast”. The daily user experience is super responsive in both cases, which was true for all recent Apple silicon products. You don’t have to spend anywhere almost as much money for a reliable and fast Mac.

Aside from the substantial multi-corners, going to the ultra-level, you are also the advantages of E / S. The two border ports offer Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and, theoretically, data transfer speeds of up to 120 GB / s on the M3 Ultra Studio. If you opt for the maximum, you simply get a pair of regular USB 3 USB ports at the front. The back of the studio includes four Thunderbolt 5 ports, whatever the chip you choose, so it is mainly a question of knowing if you need cutting -edge performance of each available port. If your work requires an abundance of external displays, it is also worth knowing that the Ultra Studio supports up to eight screens, while the M4 Max model ends at five years.

At the rear, you will also find two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, 10 Ethernet Gigabit and a 3.5 mm audio plug. On the Mac Mini, the 3.5 mm socket is at the front, which is more practical for headphones, but less if you plug in full-time speakers that are not going. Like the MacBook Pro, the studio offers a UHS-II SDXC card reader, which I permanently miss the mini. If money was not an object, should I upgrade for an SD card location? It’s not out of the question.

There remains a significant weight difference between the M4 Max (6.1 pounds) and M3 Ultra Studio (8 pounds); The latter accumulates on nearly two too much pounds because it has a larger coolant module inside, which is made of copper compared to the thermal aluminum dissipator of the max.

Like its predecessors, the Mac 2025 studio offers vertiginous performance while performing “shocking silent”, as a former colleague Monica Chin written two years ago. It is also true today as at the time. In a few days of testing, this thing laughed at my changes in my Lightroom, did a quick job of reducing the noise of Adobe and other effects, and I have never heard a fan noise.

The M3 Ultra chip is exaggerated for many. If you need this level of power, you already know exactly how you will get the best party. It is for artists and animators with visual effects. It is for professionals who do an ambitious audio and video production work. Do you regularly grow large sets of medical data? Maybe you can use all these hearts and memory for their full potential. And as the development of AI continues to flourish, configurations killed with 256 GB or 512 GB of memory could prove attractive to anyone interested in executing Sophisticated LLM models locally on their machine.

I have only our Mac Studio revision unit for a few days, so for the moment I provide the usual benchmarks and I prepare it for some of these LLM test cases to assess what it is capable of. In the coming weeks, I will also turn to friends and experts in other areas that can fully appreciate the studio’s capacities to see what they think of his performances. If you have ideas or tests, you would like to see us pass, do not hesitate to share them in the comments.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge
_{Shot with the Nikon Z6iii}