Apple’s new Mac Studio is faster, more powerful, and built for AI

Apple debuts new M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips for 2025's Mac Studio

(Credit: Apple)

• 🖥️ Apple has unveiled an updated Mac Studio with several improvements

• 🆕 New M4 Max and M3 Ultra processors were announced

• 💪 Up to 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 512GB RAM, 16TB of storage

• 👏 Thunderbolt 5 also appears across the board

• 📱 🤓 It'll support Apple Intelligence

• 💲 Pricing remains the same, starting at $1,999

• 📅 Pre-orders are available now, launching March 12

A revamped Mac Studio was an unexpected announcement from Apple today, as the company also revealed an upgraded iPad Air and MacBook Air. The Mac Studio gets all-new processors with the M4 Max and M3 Ultra – with the M3 Ultra being the more powerful chip, which is slightly confusing. You can now kit out the Mac Studio with half a terabyte of RAM and a combined 144-core processor (32 CPU, 80 GPU, 32 Neural Engine). And, of course, it supports Apple Intelligence.

Performance-wise, the 2025 Mac Studio comes with either the M4 Max or M3 Ultra processors. The base M4 Max has a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 16-core neural engine, while the M3 Ultra tops out at 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, and 32-core neural engine. Apple claims the M3 Ultra is up to four times faster at rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the Intel-based Mac Pro. Apple also made some other very specific comparisons, but the main takeaway is that the upgraded Mac Studio is very powerful indeed.

Remember the days when we all thought 16GB or even 8GB was adequate for most computers? Apple just said, “hold my beer”. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio can be equipped with up to 512GB of unified memory (yes, with a ‘G’). That’s an insane amount of memory for any consumer computer and will offer some serious performance gains for pro users.

(Credit: Apple)

For inputs, Apple ditched Thunderbolt 4 for Thunderbolt 5. Thunderbolt 5 offers up to 120 Gb/s transfer speeds and overall performance improvements for external accessories. Additionally, the Mac Studio also has a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and an SDXC card slot on the front to conveniently import photos and video. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

I’ve been quite happy with and almost spoiled by a two-monitor setup for a while, but that’s small fry for the Mac Studio. For those who need to see everything and everywhere at once, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio supports up to eight displays at full 6K resolution. Personally, that feels too Matrix-y for me, but hey, if you need it, you got it.

(Credit: Apple)

To no one's surprise, the updated Mac Studio supports Apple Intelligence. But Apple is pushing AI even harder with the Mac Studio. Apple was quick to highlight the AI-development chops of the Mac Studio, discussing how powerful the new processors are at running and coding for AI tools such as large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Clearly, the company hopes AI will be its next trillion-dollar idea.

There are no aesthetic changes to the Mac Studio, so the only upgrades are internal. That’s not surprising considering this is a pro-level machine, so most buyers won’t care about the color. Sadly, unlike the new MacBook Air, the Mac Studio price remains the same with the base M4 Max model starting at $1,999. The fully configured M3 Ultra will cost you just over $14,000.

What about the Mac Pro?

For decades, the Mac Pro was always Apple’s biggest and most advanced computer and the gold standard for pro-grade desktops. However, when the first Mac Studio was released in 2022, the biggest question for pros was what would happen to the Mac Pro. Several tech reviewers even noted that the original Mac Studio was already more powerful than the Pro, so no one really knew what Apple intended to do. The company gave the Mac Pro its M-series silicon with the M2 Ultra less than two years ago, so hopefully, Apple will continue to update it. However, there haven’t been any rumors about it, so I don’t expect anything soon.

If the Mac Studio is more than you need, Apple also announced the new M4-powered MacBook Air today.

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Jason Cockerham is a seasoned technology journalist reporting on the latest tech trends for The Shortcut and CNET. He has also written for Android Central, XDA, Android Police, and more. You can follow him at @jasonthejasonc on X and LinkedIn.