Aside from Vision Pro, their mixed reality headset, and a larger 15-inch MacBook Air, Apple also debuted a refreshed Mac Studio powered with the latest in the Apple M2 family of system-on-chips. We were already impressed by the original Mac Studio, which packed a lot of punch for something of its size, and considering that Cupertino has kept the same chassis but swapped out the hardware underneath, the new Mac Studio should be even more powerful than before, especially when you take a look at Apple’s shiny new silicon.
1. Introducing the new M2 Ultra
The big headline feature with the new Mac Studio is understandably under the hood thanks to the new M2 Ultra system-on-chip. According to Apple, the M2 Ultra is Cupertino’s largest and most capable chip ever created, built out of two M2 Max dies connected through UltraFusion, similar to how the M1 Ultra was two M1 Max chips fused together. This latest UltraFusion technology uses a silicon interposer connecting the two dies to over 10,000 signals for over 2.5TB/s of low latency interprocessor bandwidth.
All together you’re looking at a 24-core CPU with 16 of Apple’s next generation high performance cores and eight high efficiency cores that Apple claims is up to 20% faster than the M1 Ultra. As for the GPU, it can be configured with either 60 or 76 of Apple’s next generation GPU cores, up to 12 more than its predecessor with up to 30% more performance. In DaVinci Resolve for instance, Apple says you can expect up to 50% faster video processing while using Octane to render 3D effects should be up to three times faster than the Mac Studio M1 Ultra.
On top of that, the M2 Ultra also features a 32-core Neural Engine that’s 40% faster than the M1 Ultra’s, a 800GB/s system memory bandwidth and if you’re really into big amounts of memory the M2 Ultra Mac Studio will be able to support up to 192GB of memory. Apple says that this lets you use it to train massive machine learning workloads on a single system that according to them at least can’t be done on discrete GPUs.
2. Also available with the cheaper-but-still-powerful M2 Max
If you don’t necessarily need all that performance but still need more performance than what the M2 Pro Mac Mini can offer, the Mac Studio with the M2 Max Mac Studio should offer a nice middle ground for you. Even with the M2 Max, Apple says the Mac Studio will be 50% faster than the original M1 Max Mac Studio when it comes to rendering in After Effects, and up to 25% faster for developers using Xcode.
The 12-core CPU with up to 38 GPU cores and up to 96GB of memory running at 400GB/s of memory bandwidth is also rated to be four times faster than the last Intel-based 27-inch iMac, though in Intel’s defence the latter is three years old now. The M2 Max also features the same 16-core Neural Engine as seen on the MacBook Pro 16 from earlier this year.
3. Even more display output support
It’s not often you need to have up to eight displays pushing a 4K resolution coming off the same computer, but in the event that you do, the M2 Ultra Mac Studio has you covered. If you opt for the M2 Ultra-powered option you’ll get simultaneous support for up to eight displays with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz, six displays with up to 6K at 60Hz and three displays with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.
The more tame M2 Max Mac Studio meanwhile is pretty capable, offering simultaneous support for up to five displays, the same as the original Mac Studio with up to four displays pushing a 6K resolution over Thunderbolt and one more display running at 4K at 60Hz over HDMI.
4. Improved wireless connectivity
The new Mac Studio features some notable upgrades when it comes to wireless connectivity. It now features support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, up from the WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 the original Mac Studio had. I/O though remains unchanged, with four Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-C ports for the M2 Max version while the M2 Ultra Mac Studio gets six Thunderbolt 4 ports in total. Regardless of which processor you use, you’ll also get two USB-A ports, a HDMI port, a 10Gb Ethernet port and an SD card slot.
Elsewhere, there’s a built-in speaker too though it’s honestly not great. The 3.5mm headphone jack meanwhile now comes with support for high-impedance headphones. The Mac Studio keeps the same chassis as before, with a 19.7 x 19.7 x 9.5cm body weighing 2.7kg if you’re packing an M2 Max, rising to 3.6kg on machines running M2 Ultra thanks to the more robust cooling solution.
5. Big jump in price
Lastly, the new Mac Studio sees a major jump in price compared to the original Mac Studio lineup. The new M2 Max Mac Studio starts at RM9,499, while the M2 Ultra Mac Studio starts at RM18,999. In contrast, last year’s Mac Studio with an M1 Max started at RM8,799 while the Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra started at RM16,799.
You can’t buy it just yet, as the new Mac Studio is listed as coming soon on the Apple Malaysia website, but if you were to max out every single option, the Mac Studio comes in at a hefty RM38,199 with the most powerful 76-core GPU M2 Ultra, 192GB of memory and an 8TB SSD—that’s just RM400 shy of the brand new Perodua Axia base model.
