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Apple Mac Studio

653 points by 0xedb 5y ago

exabrial 5y ago
Can we please please please stop hijacking the scroll wheel
vbezhenar 5y ago
It's ugly. And I love it. No more obsession over form.
Maursault 5y ago
Without having a teardown available, and more importantly, without having actually manually manipulated it, I am ready to say the Studio is poor design. I could be completely wrong, but it appears from the images of the back that the design is simply this: a Mac Mini on the bottom with storage, I/O & PSU, below a processor layer with a massive heatsink, which is likely the only thing taking up any space behind the top grill. The problem with the design is that the M1 Ultra version weighs 8lbs., and most that weight is going to be in the bottom, making Studio unwieldy, and I expect placement of this little bottom-heavy box that weighs nearly as much as a gallon of water is going to be the source of a number of wrist injuries, and I think it is safe to say also, there will naturally be some blunt force injuries to a number of hands and fingers, some with ugly lacerations. Most of this could have been avoided with some new cutting edge technology colloquially known as putting a doggone handle on the top that was solidly loaded into the more massive layer on the bottom. I think the design ethic here is similar to strapping a 350 to a gocart. Putting a handle on something that weighs 8lbs. is so ordinary and necessary and obvious, and because Studio lacks it, I honestly do not care what's inside it. Even if manipulation is only going to occur once or a small handful of times, physically it is going to function like junk, and that just bugs me too much. I have too much junk as it is. I'd take 2 budget M1 Minis and an Intel Mini over a maxed out Studio every time. I'm absolutely serious, a handle would have changed everything.
cube2222 5y ago
Looks like all the people saying "just start fusing those M1 CPU's into bigger ones" were right, that's basically what they did for the top of the line new M1 CPU (fused two M1 Max'es together). And since the presenter mentioned the Mac Pro would come on another day, I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that.
- quirino 5y ago
  If they do create another chip for the Mac Pro, I wonder what they'll call it. We have the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra so far.
  - cehrlich 5y ago
    Pro, Max, Ultra, Mega?
  - nameless912 5y ago
    There's a New Nintendo 23DSLite iXL[1] joke in here somewhere. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MHRcPLr38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MHRcPLr38
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - minimaxir 5y ago
    M1 Plus Ultra. Just go full anime.
  - dilap 5y ago
    M1 Ultra Pro, baby
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Maybe it won't be M at all? I still reckon they might do discrete GPUs for the pro model, which could make it quite different to the other M chips.
  - nojito 5y ago
    M1 Ultra Max
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Reminds me of this from Minions: https://youtu.be/Xs4LF8QnELM https://youtu.be/Xs4LF8QnELM At least it’s less confusing than the fucked up Intel and AMD product numbers.
  - 5y ago
mynameisvlad 5y ago
I think from a design perspective, this is the most disappointing Apple release so far. It's just way too tall, imo. There's a lot of empty space on the front which just seems odd. I'm not exactly sure what they could've done to keep the Mac Mini footprint, but this ain't it.
- minimaxir 5y ago
  From the presentation, the entire top half is the thermal system so can't really put I/O there.
  - mynameisvlad 5y ago
    Maybe extending the grill all the way around with some other design changes to make it feel fresh, and not just a taller Mac Mini?
    - rovr138 5y ago
      You also have to consider thermals and how the air would flow over components. It's not just as simple as adding more holes
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        Fake grills have existed for years. More airflow is usually, but not always, better. All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good to me, and some more work could've been done to not just make it look like a weird, tall Mac Mini.
        beachy 5y ago
        > All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good to me That's not what you said. Here's what you actually said, which is ridiculously hyberbolic, hence this discussion. > I think from a design perspective, this is the most disappointing Apple release so far.
hughrr 5y ago
This is actually really cheap. Maxed out at £7999 is less than half the price of an HP Z with similar numbers configured in which it probably can’t even get near the mac. And it doesn’t need $1000 wheels.
- rovr138 5y ago
  $5,799 for: * 20 core cpu * 64 core gpu * 32 core neural engine * 128GB of ram * 1TB SSD fully maxed out, 8TB SSD
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Yeah stuff SSD array in TB4 hole for less money.
    - rovr138 5y ago
      Yeah. Obviously depends on people's workload. For myself and to future proof, I can see a benefit for 2TB locally. The rest I can offload to network storage.
      - hughrr 5y ago
        Indeed. I’m running on a 512Gb MBP 14” and have 310Gb free so no point in this for me.
        londons_explore 5y ago
        Start editing high res video, and those TB's will quickly fill up.
        hughrr 5y ago
        I have been purposely avoiding that situation to save money :)
        scottlamb 5y ago
0x0 5y ago
So an M1 max is not... max anymore (>_<)
- sanedigital 5y ago
  Technically "Ultra" means "Beyond", so putting it above "Max" means it's "beyond the maximum" :P
- can16358p 5y ago
  Well yes and no. M1 Ultra is obviously faster, but that actually is two M1 Maxes glued together. (Of course it's much more complicated than that) In that sense it's not a completely new processor so it's not exactly breaking the "Max" promise... or am I playing devil's advocate here?
minimaxir 5y ago
The Mac Studio's HDMI doesn't support 120Hz out (so likely HDMI 2.0?) and it also doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse.
- the_lucifer 5y ago
  Seems like it shares the same shortcomings as the M1 Pro/Max family then.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    At least the display port goes 120Hz beyond.
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  The complete lack of what HDMI port it uses is indeed pretty bizarre, but why would it come with a keyboard and mouse? The people who buy this already have those, or know which ones they need far better than Apple does, and will buy the exactly models they want on their own.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    > The complete lack of what HDMI port it uses is indeed pretty bizarre Isn't "Support for one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz" as stated on their specs page[1] pretty clear? It's an HDMI 2.0 port and I think mentioning the supported resolution and refresh rate is more helpful to customers than the HDMI spec version. [1] https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/specs/
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- SZJX 5y ago
  The Thunderbolt ports support 120Hz though. I've been using the company MBP 14" with a 144Hz display without a hitch.
kccoder 5y ago
Apple said that Max's CPU is up to 2.5x faster and the Ultra's CPU is up to 3.8x faster than whatever intel CPU is in the iMac Pro, so you're getting about 52% more CPU performance with Ultra's doubling in CPU cores vs the Max, so definitely feeling some linear scaling limitations with the interconnect.
- rovr138 5y ago
  There has to be overhead to not have to deal with the multi-cpu architecture in software. It's impressive
  - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
    Though maybe we can get some NUMA-like affinity control for the M1 Ultra, so HPC control freaks can finally tune the fuck out of this hardware.
    - rovr138 5y ago
      I'm actually curious about memory. Since they're 2 distinct chips, will a single chip be able to handle 128GB? Not sure how the interconnect works.
      - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
        Yes, as all NUMA machines do, one CPU can access all memory, both local (to the CPU) and global (through the interconnect). The problem is that there is a significant latency cost when a CPU accesses non-local memory (limitations of the interconnect). So the HPC people writing their algorithms make sure that this happens at a minimal amount, by enforcing that the data each CPU is using is allocated locally as possible (ex. by using special affinity controls provided by libnuma) I was just curious if these kinds of optimizations are possible in the M1 Ultra.
        MBCook 5y ago
        But IS there an interconnect? The way Apple presented it sounded more like the chips talked at a lower layer, much like if it was all built as one physical chip, than when you have two normal chips with an interconnect fabric. Someone will figure it out with benchmarks or something.
turndown 5y ago
I was kind of disappointed as I expected this to be the keyboard thing that was leaked to the news a bit ago; seemed to fit just right with their arguments of portability, connectivity, modularity.
- rovr138 5y ago
  I just couldn't see it. Specially for the studio. The thermals would have been insane to deal with
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  yea they kinda glossed over "modularity", I didn't see any modules...
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    This is pretty squarely marketed towards current users of 27" iMacs and iMac Pro's, so from that perspective the "modularity" being spoken of is the ability to use the display with things that aren't the Mac as well as the ability to upgrade the display. Thunderbolt 4 also makes it better than the previous TB3 iMacs in terms of external expansion.
  - copperx 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure they meant "buy and connect up to three our new displays however you like".
lwkl 5y ago
Great they avoided $1000 stand memes by offering a more reasonable $400 stand. To be more serious looks like a pretty good product that fits well into offices. I stopped working in IT in 2018 but back then SFF was all the rage and a powerful workstation with a smaller form factor will probably be attractive to a lot of customers.
- hughrr 5y ago
  I want a vesa mount one which should be cheaper. Hrumph.
  - hagbarddenstore 5y ago
    It's "free". No additional cost.
nerdjon 5y ago
More and more I see the M1 chips and I wish Mac worked seriously well for gaming. Would love too see something like Proton but for Mac (given up hopes for native support). I hate that I have my gaming PC and then my Mac for everything else. I have to wonder though what their plan is for the M2. Are they laying the groundwork for when the M2 comes out all of these variants will be ready at the same time? Or a gradual upgrade but the same series (Normal, Pro, Max, and then Ultra) for each.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  Same. That chunky PC serves only one purpose now and rest of the time is unused.
  - nerdjon 5y ago
    The unused part is what bothers me, like I actively make sure I use windows for as little outside of gaming for various reasons. But for the price to use it, ok not rarely since I game a lot... but considering I also have consoles. I would say I use my Mac more. I just wonder if this is ever going to be a realistic alternative or am I just always going to have 2 personal computers.
    - tannedNerd 5y ago
      What Im hoping for is with fiber/5G things like GeforceNow become more popular. I used it recently thanks to 6 free months from ATT when I had an unscheduled layover due to a missed flight, and it was actually playable with 7 Days to Die (a FPS). Granted it wasn't as good as my home machine, but this was also over hotel wifi so not bad
- nouveaux 5y ago
  I don't feel the need to play cutting edge games anymore. Playing Windows games in Parallel on my M1 is pretty good. I was shocked to see how well it worked. It's unlikely to run Elden Ring well. However, the vast majority of games are fine.
ShakataGaNai 5y ago
As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22 core, Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram, motherboard, 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of $5,000 That CPU isn't as powerful as the one the M1 Ultra beat in their specs, but should be about the same GPU as they compared and beat. If the benchmarks are to be believed.... the $4,000 Mac Studio will be an absolute powerhouse in the price/performance/power market for quite some amount of time. Normally I'd make some snarky remark about Apple Tax, but in this case they look to have the PC hardware equivalent very well and truly beat on cost. For now.
- xemdetia 5y ago
  If anything this just reminds me how frustrating their product line was pre-M1 for so many years. I'm still dealing with the legacy of having to work with people with 16GB as the ceiling and projects that simply do not fit in them.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    If RAM is your bottleneck, then you will still have the same problem. Apple still ships 8GB machines.
    - xemdetia 5y ago
      I'm not speaking 8GB as an end-user problem, but as a developer problem. Most of my developing machines are 32GB+ but I have to create successful workflows for macbooks that only have 16GB.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22 core, Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram, motherboard, 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of $5,000 And that's just the parts. Don't forget the M1 Ultra will use less electrical power too.
- ajconway 5y ago
  Don't forget that any of the M1-family chips are absolutely crushing the competition in single-core performance.
ushakov 5y ago
The design looks like it was designed to be a fan, but they accidentally added a computer chip
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  Cool
areoform 5y ago
I would like to highlight just how much Apple is focusing on their customers and use cases right now. It seems that they're targeting products to what their professional customers actually want. And in this case, it's a 3.7" little thing that can process 18 streams of 8k video (fully specced out). That's kinda crazy, and they're doing it at a price point that's competitive compared to all of the companies out there. Bravo Apple. I'd love to see what they have in store for designers and programmers next.
- rkuykendall-com 5y ago
  > what they have in store for [...] programmers They just (November) released the best MacBook Pro since 2015. Original keyboard back. Escape key back. Utility keys back. Mag-Safe back. HDMI back. SD card back. Headphone jack back. And all with a brand new M1 Pro chip.
- rconti 5y ago
  It's insane how boldly (for Apple) they focused on ports and cables. I can't remember a previous demo video that showed so many ugly cables hanging out the back of the machine. They've finally realized it's a selling point!
  - ilamont 5y ago
    My jaw hit the floor when I saw USB A ports. If only it had multiple HDMI ...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      What would you use multiple HDMI ports for? Do you exclusively use HDMI only screens/tv?
      - ilamont 5y ago
gbrown_ 5y ago
Can't wait to see a teardown of the cooling solution. Not sure how the air flows between the bottom and the heat sink as there's a board between them.
- rovr138 5y ago
  It looked like it had space in the back and then the blowers were in the front to force the air over. Then it went out the top. Looks very interesting. I'm curious of benchmarks and if there's throttling.
ejb999 5y ago
I'd buy one in a second if only it would support running vmware fusion - I still have to have one foot in Windows world, and not being able to spin-up and old windows vm is a deal breaker for me. (M1 chips won't support it). Sure hope my latest macbookpro with intel chip lasts a while, I fear it may be one of the last ones they make.
- gzer0 5y ago
  Have you tried Parallels? It works incredibly well on the M1 macs. https://www.parallels.com/ https://www.parallels.com/
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Also UTM if you are a cheap ass like me. https://github.com/utmapp/UTM https://github.com/utmapp/UTM I use native virtualisation to run Debian arm64 and emulation to run Debian x86-64
    - temac 5y ago
      Quite slow and not multicore for x64-64 though. It eventually works, but you better take a spare PC for any non trivial task.
      - hughrr 5y ago
        I usually just run one in AWS when I need one if I'm honest.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    They may be referring to the Non-Arm Windows. Let me tell you Parallels running Windows ARM is the snappiest Windows experience I have had in years....only problem is that its Windows 11 :/ Really wish there was someway to easily run Windows 7 or 8 on this thing. It would be bliss. Now that Windows XP Source has been leaked, maybe we can come together as a community, try to harden the OS and make it forward compatible with ARM. Bring back the Windows that people actually somewhat liked! If only that wasn't a monumental task :/
sys_64738 5y ago
It looks like the son of the Mac Cube.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
paxys 5y ago
Third/fourth/fifth time's the charm I guess? I really hope apple gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this time.
- the_lucifer 5y ago
  > I really hope apple gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this time. Tbh, they did mention at the end that their Apple Silicon Mac Pro is coming later down the line, which I'm guessing will focus more on upgradability and modularity
  - mkaic 5y ago
    hopefully M2 as well!
flembat 5y ago
Good to see the kind of computer we can all afford in ten years or so.
- rovr138 5y ago
  This is not really geared towards 'all'. You can see that on the presentation and who they had talking.
  - TheRealPomax 5y ago
    You missed the "ten years from now". I will happily pay $300-#400 for this machine 10 years from now to use as a random streaming box sat in a closet.
    - bogwog 5y ago
      I did that with a Mac Mini, but at some point it seems to have entered a permanently throttled state for some reason. Disk IO and CPU performance are atrocious, and idk why. Even tried installing Linux on it, but it's still incredibly slow. Maybe some sensor broke? Whatever it is, I've become much less trusting of Apple hardware that is that old.
      - brimble 5y ago
        I assume you cleaned the dust out? Otherwise I think your guess of a faulty sensor is most likely. [EDIT] Could be some thermal paste going bad, too, I guess.
loudthing 5y ago
Darn. I was really hoping for a new Macbook Air :/
ksec 5y ago
The M1 Ultra is likely using CoWoS from TSMC. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tsmc/cowos https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tsmc/cowos
BonoboIO 5y ago
The design of it looks a bit off to me. Like a cheap mac-ish intel nuc designed by huawei with their matebooks. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17396818/huawei-matebook-x-pro-laptop-review-specs-price https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17396818/huawei-matebook-...
- neal_jones 5y ago
  Agreed
- brimble 5y ago
  It looks like they made a taller computer then cut it off 2/3 of the way down. Something about the proportions read as simply wrong.
  - BonoboIO 5y ago
    But if it works, well its better than Jony Ive‘s „design is everything, function is last“ approach. - Like the Mac Pro (2013) which was thermal limited even with the launch configuration and could not be refreshed because more power would mean less power through throttling - Magic Mouse 2 which well u could not use while charging - Macbook Pro Touchbar which is there because there was nothing else to „inovate“ - MacBook Pro Keyboard which is so thin and lookin good that the owner has to replace it every 6 month
    - olliej 5y ago
      I always felt like the Touch Bar was needed so people could "see" something to compensate for the cost of the touchid + whatever the MacBook called the Secure Enclave? (I know it's T2 in the iMac)
    - brimble 5y ago
      I agree with some of this, but will note that actually using a Magic Mouse 2 cured me of joking about the design (I was entirely on the "LOL how dumb" train before that). It wasn't an issue, in practice, and did keep me from just using it plugged in all the time (which is what I tend to do with other wireless things at my desk that have integrated rechargeable batteries).
Kalanos 5y ago
yes! i have been so worried about my macbook 2014 dying because I don't want the new macbooks. this looks awesome.
livinglist 5y ago
can’t wait for M1 Ultra Pro Max Utimate
GeekyBear 5y ago
Interesting tweet from Hector Martin, who is leading the Linux port: >Chances are our kernel will Just work on M1 Ultra with just device tree changes, might not even need any m1n1 changes. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882
- speed_spread 5y ago
  Good. None of these releases matter to me if all those machines can run is Mac OS. I'm not a Linux freak, but I like machines that last a long time. Long term support is the weak spot of any proprietary design. Given the incredible hardware capabilities of these new boxes, the 5 or 6 years official expected official lifecycle is waaay too short.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    Latest MacOS is supported by Mac Pro from 9 years ago, that's pretty good. Macbook Pro from 7 years ago. These M1 machines are the new baseline, I wouldn't be surprised if they're supported a decade from now, it's not like MacOS is going to need 10x the CPU/RAM to run in 2032 knock on wood https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/ https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/ (have to scroll all the way down for supported devices)
    - humanwhosits 5y ago
      But chrome will
srvmshr 5y ago
I am genuinely crestfallen that there was no update to Mac Mini. That thing has the right balance for most computer science folks who want a Mac. Not everyone needs/runs a silicon Godzilla on their desk after all. As of the current lineup, Mini is still stuck with 16 GB RAM and a disappointing number of ports.
- xienze 5y ago
  What update were they going to do? Make an M1 Max model? That would cut into sales for the base Studio.
  - infinityio 5y ago
    They don't have a desktop M1 Pro implementation yet afaik?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dopu 5y ago
      This would make sense -- you can get the mac mini at the base M1, upgrade it to an M1 Pro, or jump up to a Mac Studio for M1 Max and above.
- thaw13579 5y ago
  There's only a gap of roughly $500 between a maxed out mini and the entry studio, so perhaps the studio is the answer to what you're looking for?
  - tonguez 5y ago
    M1 mini with 16GB RAM (most possible RAM): $1100 entry studio: $2000 That's a pretty big gap. Basically it means you have to shell out $2000+ if you want to do video editing on any M1 mac. Buying a brand new computer to do video editing that has only 16GB RAM in 2022 is unjustifiable. $2k+ is too much for most people especially young "creatives" that are making entertainment (videos). Lots of people here make hundreds of thousands a year but none of those people make that money doing video editing or working in entertainment.
jsz0 5y ago
Apple finally releases a powerful affordable desktop computer. Now I am worried it's the start of WW3 or otherwise the end of the world. Going outside now to look for flying pigs
- randcraw 5y ago
  What? $2000 for the Studio plus $1600 for their 5K display means Apple's new entry level workstation now costs $3600. That's a LOT more expensive than the old iMac 27 i7 at about $2400. To sum up, Apple just hiked their entry level workstation's price by $1200. AND they convinced you they performed magic. No, I think that flying pig you saw was proof that Jobs' reality distortion field is still alive and well.
  - mkaic 5y ago
    Except you don't have to buy their display, that's part of why the Studio is so nice. You can buy any generic display you want that doesn't cost 1600 bucks. For what you get, the 2k Studio is an absolute steal in terms of compute per watt, I/O, form factor, and longevity (Macs last ages). Plus, having 64 gigs of VRAM is absolutely amazing at that price point.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    The Mac mini is more equivalent to the iMac. This is a step beyond, a bit more like the iMac Pro, which was always more expensive.
  - olliej 5y ago
    The old iMac Pro used to cost an absurd amount - like $5k IIRC. That is the old entry level "pro" Mac. Which is quite a bit more than the studio + display. A vanilla iMac (or blueberry :D ) is a consumer device.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  I find the M1 Max configurations reasonable(almost equivalent to their Intel Mac Mini) and the M1 Ultra configurations obscene.
rconti 5y ago
Perfect. Recently went to a 40" ultrawide display to share between work laptop (during work hours) and personal desktop (after hours) to simplify my desk, and felt the Mini was probably just a little too limiting/low-end. Finally, the replacement to my 2015 iMac 5k.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  What's the name of the monitor?
  - rconti 5y ago
    Lenovo P40w-20. Dell's has one for a year or more. LG just released theirs as well. I think those are the only 3.
QuikAccount 5y ago
This is such a random thing to complain about but I hate these Mac product pages with the animations as you scroll. I guess they are designed for mobile but I navigate them on a desktop using a mouse wheel and they always look super clunky.
- MBCook 5y ago
  Apple does them FAR better than anyone else. I can’t remember if they did it first, or just popularized it, but it works well for what it is. That said, while it looks cool, after the first time you’ve used it it’s just a pain to navigate. I kind of wish it was a separate “intro” page or something. (They’re annoying on mobile too, but work better than desktop)
- cwdegidio 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't get it. They are such a UX nightmare. My company was trying to implement something like that in our latest redesign of our site and I put my foot down about it. We are in the financial B2B space and I had to explain to the marketing team that people come to our site for information... not to be shown cute animation. Also (I haven't tested Apples take on it), they are often ADA nightmares.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Mouse wheels mostly just don't have a good input resolution. It's one of the main reasons I stopped using a mouse and switched to an apple trackpad full time. I can't stand static pages that scroll in chunks either.
  - dilap 5y ago
    it sucks w/ trackpad too tho! it's just totally breaks any physicality to scrolling it's insane to me that they keep using this
- gowld 5y ago
  It's terrible on mobile too.
- 5y ago
alberth 5y ago
Mac Pro scale up? How is this going to scale up to a Mac Pro, especially related to RAM? The Ultra caps at 128 GB of RAM (which isn't much for video editing, especially given that the GPU uses the system RAM). Today's Mac Pro goes up to 1.5TB (and has dedicated video RAM above this). If the Mac Pro is say, 4 Ultra's stacked together - that means the new Mac Pro will be capped at 512GB of RAM. Would Apple stack 12 Ultra's together to get to 1.5TB of RAM? Seems unlikely.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  Production houses working on massive projects will get the Pro. Anyone else will get the Studio and use proxy clips.
- stirlo 5y ago
  Hector Martin who’s developing Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon recently tweeted about this. The M1 Pro, M1 Max and the at the time unannounced “Double M1 Max” have a completely different series identifier (T600x) to the forth coming Mac Pro chip (T6500) so no it won’t just be a doubling/quadrupling of an existing design. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1498317101245034502?s=21 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1498317101245034502?s=21
xwowsersx 5y ago
Could/would this machine makes sense as a development machine? I use a Macbook Pro (M1) and it's always docked...I basically don't need it to be transportable. I could also use more power (I'm regularly running a bunch of docker containers + PyCharm + DataGrip + Android Studio).
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I’ll pretty likely swap this in for my almost always docked intel 16”, and keep that around for the rare times I go mobile.
- eertami 5y ago
  I don't think any M1 chip makes sense at all if you need to work with a lot of docker containers. Orders of magnitude faster to do that on a Linux machine.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Not my experience at all, docker works just fine on this M1 Mac Mini, and I use docker heavily.
    - eertami 5y ago
      A test suite that takes under 2m to run under Linux docker takes over 4m when I run it on the M1. Yet the M1 is marginally faster than this i7-1185g7. For regular development reloading apps etc it's similarly sluggish. "Just fine" sure, but that time adds up. The M1 is an interesting CPU, but OSX is less popular than Linux for software development. Apple working to support Linux on the M1 would increase sales, though realistically with the other high margin product sales they do not really _need_ extra sales.
      - xwowsersx 5y ago
        Mac is perfectly fine for heavy Docker usage in my experience. Also OSX is extremely popular for software development. Be interested to see data that corroborates your assertions.
ar_lan 5y ago
Why is the M1 Max not... the maximum spec?
- andrewjl 5y ago
  It is the maximum for a single chip. Ultra is two chips in a single package. I think the name subtly emphasizes the distinction.
- eddieroger 5y ago
  It is the most they can get on one die, but they can glue multiple dies together and get more.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
The whole GPU thing is really funny. The M1 Ultra is supposedly more powerful now than an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, but I'm guessing really truly only for professional work. If you tried to play games on it or develop games for it, you're gonna find that it's less powerful than the standard AMD integrated GPU on a 5k iMac from 2015 until you come across software or build software using Metal directly. Both Wine and Parallels usage today provide poor graphics performance.
nanna 5y ago
Is it just me or have apple clearly not tested this page on Android Firefox?
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  You're not alone.
borodi 5y ago
I imagine the mac pro is going to have a Super Sayan M1
londons_explore 5y ago
So it has USB-C... yet can't be powered via USB-C?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- acherion 5y ago
  The maximum power draw of the Mac Studio according to Apple spec sheet is 370W. The maximum power draw over USB-C seems to be 100W.
colesantiago 5y ago
Is there any point to building a PC anymore?
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  At the moment the PC market is upside down, too. If you're building a professional workstation, you'll find with current prices that a business XPS desktop is cheaper by a significant margin over building your own workstation with the highest end parts available today.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  Games.
etaioinshrdlu 5y ago
Hey look, it's finally the "Missing Mac" as longed for here: https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-missing-mac/ https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-missing-ma... and here: https://www.cultofmac.com/1899/the-missing-macintosh/ https://www.cultofmac.com/1899/the-missing-macintosh/ Fans have been asking for such a thing for so many years.
- monitron 5y ago
  100% what I was thinking. Sounds silly, but it's going to massively simplify my setup and change the whole way I work.
bogwog 5y ago
The 2TB option is an extra $400. That's $200/TB. The 4TB option is $250/TB. The 8TB option is $275/TB. That looks like planned obsolescence to me. A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner than a customer with 8TB, so this pricing strategy discourages people from buying the more future-proof options. Other SSDs on the market tend to be cheaper per TB as you go up in size, but Apple's seem to be completely backwards (and obscenely overpriced, of course). Or am I being too cynical here, and this is just that famous "luxury tax"?
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  A lot of professionals use external drives for their work, and Apple has the right of charging beyond market value per TB of storage because the space is integrated, so you'll find that most people will purchase on-the-curve storage and rely on high-performance commodity drives for day-to-day artifacts and asset work.
- my123 5y ago
  Those are desktops, and Thunderbolt/USB 4 allows for fast SSDs. You can have the OS installed on an external drive too. It's much less of an issue there than on laptops.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  That seems pretty typical for Apple. Upgrading from 512gb to 1tb on a MacBook Air is $200.
- turdnagel 5y ago
  I've never heard of an accusation of planned obsolescence based on price before. > A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner Though I have no data to back it up, I think this is your mistaken assumption. I think it's much more likely that people upgrade because of CPU/RAM than disk space.
  - FranksTV 5y ago
    Yeah you can throw an external SSD on a thunderbolt connection and unless you're editing video you'll never know the difference.
dmje 5y ago
The clauses on those sentences don't scan. Stunningly compact. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous performance. I mean, you've gotta either go Stunning size. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous performance. or Stunningly compact Extensively connected. Outrageously performant. Anyway. Not sure anyone apart from me will care.
- mkaic 5y ago
  Eh, reads fine to me. Helps break up the list so that people don't just skim over it, I'd guess.
tonguez 5y ago
Don't a lot of people want a computer in the 1000-2000$ range? The average person who wants to do video editing on an M1 mac just wants >=32GB of RAM. The only way to get that is to shell out $2000+. M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $1100 M1 Max Mac Studio with 32GB RM and 512GB SSD for $2000 Yeah because nobody ever buys a computer that costs between $1000 and $2000... ? A 512GB SSD in a $2k computer? People who deal with HD video are going to want at least 1TB right? So it basically starts at $2200? Is Apple going to release anything anytime soon for the young/not-rich kids who want to do real video editing (need >=32GB RAM)?
SpacePortKnight 5y ago
Apple claims M1 Ultra is faster than 28 Core Intel Xeon W chip, which they ship in Mac Pro. If that's true, then Mac Studio is an excellent value. Mac Pro with 28 Core, 96GB RAM, 1TB SSD = $14,199 Mac Studio with M1 Ultra (48GPU Cores), 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD = $4,800 Also it looks like they compared their CPU performance with the latest intel generation in their demo. > "16-core PC desktop CPU performance data from testing Core i9-12900K with DDR5 memory" https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/#footnote https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/#footnote It's kinda scary how monster of a company Apple has become lately. Their product line-up in compute is now unmatched.
andjd 5y ago
I'm really happy they're not going with a iMac pro form factor for these. Having a separate display and computer is great for avoiding e-waste. There are a ton of iMacs out there that have obsolete hardware but a screen that still works great.
- wmeredith 5y ago
  I died inside when they got rid of target display mode for iMacs.
  - infinityio 5y ago
    I've seen projects online about converting 5k iMacs into external displays by essentially ripping out the insides and putting in a driver board instead - I wonder what the relative cost (/value proposition) of that is compared to these new displays if you don't need a webcam?
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    This was initially kinda justifiable; when the first 5K iMac came out there was no commonly available connection that could do 5K (the iMac used a somewhat overclocked DP link internally, I think), so their only option would have been two DP cables (a configuration that then also had very limited support). That excuse really went away with TB3 and newer iterations of DP, tho, and it's pretty disappointing that they didn't bring it back at that point.
  - RotANobot 5y ago
    Ouch! I always thought that was an awesome feature and didn’t know they got rid of it.
georgeburdell 5y ago
I don’t buy Apple products for philosophical reasons, but the Mac Mini, and now Mac Studio, are everything I wish Intel NUCs were. I have an Intel Skull Canyon system from 2016 as my gaming PC and it fits in my wife’s purse. Since then, the gaming NUC variants have gotten larger and larger so that they’re nearly mini-ATX form factor again.
- dangus 5y ago
  You should get into the small form factor (SFF) Mini ITX gaming scene. Brands like Velkase, Custom MOD (in Ukraine, cannot currently conduct business), Phanteks, DAN Case, NZXT H1 V2, and many others are really interesting options. I've built systems that use either SFX PSUs or Flex ATX PSUs (the latter are usually modified with Noctua fans to quiet them down, so using a case that requires an SFX power supply is more noob-friendly and will have more generous power limits) The Optimum Tech channel on YouTube is a great as a general small form factor resource. Here's a case roundup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8T81nuLFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8T81nuLFM Gamers Nexus sometimes covers small form factor, but Optimum Tech has a lot more focus on SFF in particular.
- Shadonototra 5y ago
  > I don’t buy Apple products for philosophical reasons philosophical? they are the most responsible company ever https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/ they push performance limit while maintaining very low power consumption What's philosophical into buying Intel or Microsoft Windows that constantly spy on you and forces bloat on your face year after year? Apple reinvest into its OS and HW, i don't understand your logic
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Apple pushes promotions of their services into my face all the time. Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Whatever. I hate it. At least with Windows I can disable it once and forget about it.
    - Shadonototra 5y ago
avar 5y ago
The chassis seems to be around the right size for a DIY project of combining it with an iMac G4 swivel display [1]. With a modern display it would make for a really nice 3rd party accessory. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30576310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30576310
greendave 5y ago
Nice machine, but for all the lip service to sustainability and environmental friendliness, the insistence of soldering everything in makes for a disposable device. In particular, once the SSD goes, it’s just a very expensive brick.
boboguitar 5y ago
Can I build my large xcode project in less than 20 minutes with this?
thrusong 5y ago
Where does this fit in the lineup of Macs? The 27" iMac is gone and the Mac Studio looks like it's taking the place of that or could even be the new Pro. I don't want that thing on my desktop, I want a big all-in-one. At least the Studio Display looks like it could be used to stuff some kind of M chip in down the road for a "pro" all-in-one option.
- newaccount74 5y ago
  Using the 27" iMac with lots of stuff plugged in is a bit annoying. I occasionally have cables coming loose when I adjust the display. And it's impossible to get additional displays that match the iMacs look.
  - thrusong 5y ago
    That didn't match my experience with my 27" now-dead iMac, which I'm eager to replace with an Apple silicon model. As for the "additional displays that match" comment, I did say above that it looks like the Studio Display could be the form factor for a new 27" iMac. It's got an A15 chip in it already, as well as multiple ports on the back so they probably could get something less powerful than an M1 Ultra in it soon.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  The Mac Studio + Display is a replacement for the discontinued iMac Pro, not the 27" iMac. Just look at the pricing on the combo.
mrcwinn 5y ago
If anyone thinks Apple is not very serious about AR/VR consumer products, their renewed focus on creative professionals, intense workloads, and GPU performance seems to suggest otherwise. Whatever the marketing out of Microsoft Surface, it's the Mac that has always enabled creative workflows. I'm genuinely more excited about the Mac than any other product, which I haven't felt or said for many years. Nice work, Apple silicon and hardware teams!
- arvinsim 5y ago
  > Whatever the marketing out of Microsoft Surface, it's the Mac that has always enabled creative workflows. I'm genuinely more excited about the Mac than any other product, which I haven't felt or said for many years. A professional will work with whatever tools he needs, Mac or otherwise. It's pretty narrow-minded to think that it's the domain of one OS.
cosmiccatnap 5y ago
aetherspawn 5y ago
It would be nice if it was rack mountable.
pipeline_peak 5y ago
I don’t even care about the specs. Just love the fact they fit it all in that tiny case, flush under a Studio display monitor. There’s something 90s about it, SGI maybe?
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  Sun SPARCstation IPC: a lovely form factor and a great client machine. The matching monitor could sit on top. The whining fans were not so great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_IPC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_IPC It was quickly obsolete as CPUs got fast and too hot for that box.
dcchambers 5y ago
It's a little funny looking, proportionally speaking, but I am so happy to see some ports on the front. It can be incredibly awkward to try and find ports on the back of a machine. At first glance it seems a little expensive, but the value based on performance is actually fantastic. Well done, apple.
Havoc 5y ago
Easily the most obnoxious scroll/parallax presentation I've seen thus far 2022. Guess I'll watch to mkhb video to see what the product is
simonjgreen 5y ago
This gives me distinct G4 Mac Pro tower aesthetic vibes but with a modern twist. Love it :)
w-m 5y ago
The amount of compute paired with the shared memory and fast bandwidth would make this an awesome fit for machine learning. But for PyTorch, the framework everybody is using now at least in computer vision, there seems to be no support at all for the GPU or the neural cores (which the presentation went on and on about). I guess I’d better not hold my breath about support there, given Apples historical stance on support third party APIs/frameworks?
- coder543 5y ago
  Whether PyTorch supports it... I'm not sure, but Tensorflow is still an immensely popular framework, and it is supported: https://blog.tensorflow.org/2020/11/accelerating-tensorflow-performance-on-mac.html https://blog.tensorflow.org/2020/11/accelerating-tensorflow-... https://developer.apple.com/metal/tensorflow-plugin/ https://developer.apple.com/metal/tensorflow-plugin/
youngtaff 5y ago
Boy is that an ugly box… the proportions seem all wrong to me - looks like they just stacked a bunch on Mac Mini’s (which has pretty nice proportions)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kulix425 5y ago
torginus 5y ago
As a dev, I think this is neat - but unfortunately, to this very day, the most important workloads usually are single-threaded, even the ones that are multi-threaded, rarely scale to more than 8 cores. This usually means that the advanced M1 variants don't really offer an advantage over the base offering, although, more RAM is always nice.
- tomaskafka 5y ago
  It's long past the time to change this. Even Xcode now has a much more parallelized build system.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  No CPU, x86 or ARM, has broken through the 2K GeekBench benchmark. The CPU that could do that would be innovative.
rsync 5y ago
I see that the official Apple specs mention "support for 5 displays" and the tech specs state: "Support for up to four Pro Display XDRs (6K resolution at 60Hz and over a billion colors) over USB-C and one 4K display (4K resolution at 60Hz and over a billion colors) over HDMI" ... so I am very pleasantly surprised there ... >4k resolution on the four Thunderbolt ports and then a bonus 4k port via HDMI. The same question arises as with the mac mini: Why can't the additional (leftover) ports be used for even more displays ? In this case, there are two more ports on the front (either USB-C or TB4) that can handle a display - why is that not possible ?
- grecy 5y ago
  I have to assume at some point you simply hit the limit of how many pixels it can push out. Remember, you're talking about running FOUR displays at a resolution that was unheard of on the desktop two years ago AND another display at 4k simply as a "bonus".
Daub 5y ago
It’s interesting that they are demoing a 3d app on the screen. Does this mean that finally 3D on a Mac is not underpowered. The hold point always used to be the graphics card, but will apples new chip be equal to the task?
rubyist5eva 5y ago
Sweet just in time for my april performance review and hardware upgrade :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vietvu 5y ago
Apple CPU these days are so impressive. I am getting out of Apple ecosystem, but cannot ignore those.
novok 5y ago
Biggest missing thing for me is no internal M.2 SSD slots where you can swap storage. Getting external closures is annoying, really wish it came with 2 or 4 m.2 slots that you could put on the top or bottom. Cables break, wiggle around, get moved around during data transfer and cause it to get corrupted or fail and more.
- jkestner 5y ago
  Try: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx https://satechi.net/products/stand-hub-for-mac-mini-with-ssd-enclosure https://satechi.net/products/stand-hub-for-mac-mini-with-ssd... Guess this is what "modular" means. Now if there was just a cableless solution, we'd be living the Jonathan modular concept from the 80s.
jedwhite 5y ago
I feel like they missed an opportunity to call this the Mac M1 Maxi.
intrasight 5y ago
Still no ECC. For some reason that bothers me on this class of machine.
sidlls 5y ago
The "overview" is just a graphic with links to an event page and video content. That isn't an overview. An overview is a blurb of text summarizes the subject matter. I am really, really sick of these gated "watch the video" information vehicles. I read much faster than video plays: stick to text if you want my attention for things like this.
bla3 5y ago
Here's hoping they bring back a usb-a port on their laptops too.
fomine3 5y ago
We miss M1 Pro Mac Mini?
TedShiller 5y ago
the casting lol
daniel-grigg 5y ago
Given the size I wonder if it’d make a practical laptop replacement for work? Just toss in your bag when you go home!
deagle50 5y ago
That heatsink is too small for my taste. Should have gone full cube, still thr coolest Mac ever.
Charlie11 5y ago
betageek 5y ago
I'm kind of disappointed, Apple make such a big thing of being green but keep making machines that aren't upgradeable in these tiny form factors. I was really hoping for a more affordable Mac Pro with easily accessible memory/ram and some expansion slots.
arvinsim 5y ago
Missed opportunity to add FaceID especially since the A13 is there.
Maursault 5y ago
I generally like Apple designs, but I think the Studio is ugly and uninspired. It reminds me of a cheesy HiFi component. If they couldn't come up with a better original design, they should have abandoned pretty design and put a handle on the top to make it easier to move around. Also, I think it is ridiculously expensive, should have maxed out closer to $4K, not $10K. Also, since it is thick enough, they could have jammed in a little wide-screen right on the front as a backup or aux monitor. For $10K, I'd like a little wide-screen display on the front.

Apple Mac Studio

653 points by 0xedb 5y ago

exabrial 5y ago

Can we please please please stop hijacking the scroll wheel

vbezhenar 5y ago

It's ugly. And I love it. No more obsession over form.

Maursault 5y ago

Without having a teardown available, and more importantly, without having actually manually manipulated it, I am ready to say the Studio is poor design. I could be completely wrong, but it appears from the images of the back that the design is simply this: a Mac Mini on the bottom with storage, I/O & PSU, below a processor layer with a massive heatsink, which is likely the only thing taking up any space behind the top grill. The problem with the design is that the M1 Ultra version weighs 8lbs., and most that weight is going to be in the bottom, making Studio unwieldy, and I expect placement of this little bottom-heavy box that weighs nearly as much as a gallon of water is going to be the source of a number of wrist injuries, and I think it is safe to say also, there will naturally be some blunt force injuries to a number of hands and fingers, some with ugly lacerations. Most of this could have been avoided with some new cutting edge technology colloquially known as putting a doggone handle on the top that was solidly loaded into the more massive layer on the bottom. I think the design ethic here is similar to strapping a 350 to a gocart. Putting a handle on something that weighs 8lbs. is so ordinary and necessary and obvious, and because Studio lacks it, I honestly do not care what's inside it. Even if manipulation is only going to occur once or a small handful of times, physically it is going to function like junk, and that just bugs me too much. I have too much junk as it is. I'd take 2 budget M1 Minis and an Intel Mini over a maxed out Studio every time. I'm absolutely serious, a handle would have changed everything.

cube2222 5y ago

Looks like all the people saying "just start fusing those M1 CPU's into bigger ones" were right, that's basically what they did for the top of the line new M1 CPU (fused two M1 Max'es together). And since the presenter mentioned the Mac Pro would come on another day, I wonder if they'll just do 4x M1 Max for that.

quirino 5y ago
If they do create another chip for the Mac Pro, I wonder what they'll call it. We have the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra so far.
- cehrlich 5y ago
  Pro, Max, Ultra, Mega?
- nameless912 5y ago
  There's a New Nintendo 23DSLite iXL[1] joke in here somewhere. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MHRcPLr38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MHRcPLr38
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- minimaxir 5y ago
  M1 Plus Ultra. Just go full anime.
- dilap 5y ago
  M1 Ultra Pro, baby
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Maybe it won't be M at all? I still reckon they might do discrete GPUs for the pro model, which could make it quite different to the other M chips.
- nojito 5y ago
  M1 Ultra Max
- hughrr 5y ago
  Reminds me of this from Minions: https://youtu.be/Xs4LF8QnELM https://youtu.be/Xs4LF8QnELM At least it’s less confusing than the fucked up Intel and AMD product numbers.
- 5y ago

mynameisvlad 5y ago

I think from a design perspective, this is the most disappointing Apple release so far. It's just way too tall, imo. There's a lot of empty space on the front which just seems odd. I'm not exactly sure what they could've done to keep the Mac Mini footprint, but this ain't it.

minimaxir 5y ago
From the presentation, the entire top half is the thermal system so can't really put I/O there.
- mynameisvlad 5y ago
  Maybe extending the grill all the way around with some other design changes to make it feel fresh, and not just a taller Mac Mini?
  - rovr138 5y ago
    You also have to consider thermals and how the air would flow over components. It's not just as simple as adding more holes
    - mynameisvlad 5y ago
      Fake grills have existed for years. More airflow is usually, but not always, better. All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good to me, and some more work could've been done to not just make it look like a weird, tall Mac Mini.
      - beachy 5y ago
        > All I'm saying is the current design doesn't look good to me That's not what you said. Here's what you actually said, which is ridiculously hyberbolic, hence this discussion. > I think from a design perspective, this is the most disappointing Apple release so far.

hughrr 5y ago

This is actually really cheap. Maxed out at £7999 is less than half the price of an HP Z with similar numbers configured in which it probably can’t even get near the mac. And it doesn’t need $1000 wheels.

rovr138 5y ago
$5,799 for: * 20 core cpu * 64 core gpu * 32 core neural engine * 128GB of ram * 1TB SSD fully maxed out, 8TB SSD
- hughrr 5y ago
  Yeah stuff SSD array in TB4 hole for less money.
  - rovr138 5y ago
    Yeah. Obviously depends on people's workload. For myself and to future proof, I can see a benefit for 2TB locally. The rest I can offload to network storage.
    - hughrr 5y ago
      Indeed. I’m running on a 512Gb MBP 14” and have 310Gb free so no point in this for me.
      - londons_explore 5y ago
        Start editing high res video, and those TB's will quickly fill up.
        hughrr 5y ago
        I have been purposely avoiding that situation to save money :)
        scottlamb 5y ago

0x0 5y ago

So an M1 max is not... max anymore (>_<)

sanedigital 5y ago
Technically "Ultra" means "Beyond", so putting it above "Max" means it's "beyond the maximum" :P
can16358p 5y ago
Well yes and no. M1 Ultra is obviously faster, but that actually is two M1 Maxes glued together. (Of course it's much more complicated than that) In that sense it's not a completely new processor so it's not exactly breaking the "Max" promise... or am I playing devil's advocate here?

minimaxir 5y ago

The Mac Studio's HDMI doesn't support 120Hz out (so likely HDMI 2.0?) and it also doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse.

the_lucifer 5y ago
Seems like it shares the same shortcomings as the M1 Pro/Max family then.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  At least the display port goes 120Hz beyond.
TheRealPomax 5y ago
The complete lack of what HDMI port it uses is indeed pretty bizarre, but why would it come with a keyboard and mouse? The people who buy this already have those, or know which ones they need far better than Apple does, and will buy the exactly models they want on their own.
- thirdsun 5y ago
  > The complete lack of what HDMI port it uses is indeed pretty bizarre Isn't "Support for one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz" as stated on their specs page[1] pretty clear? It's an HDMI 2.0 port and I think mentioning the supported resolution and refresh rate is more helpful to customers than the HDMI spec version. [1] https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/specs/ https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/specs/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
SZJX 5y ago
The Thunderbolt ports support 120Hz though. I've been using the company MBP 14" with a 144Hz display without a hitch.

kccoder 5y ago

Apple said that Max's CPU is up to 2.5x faster and the Ultra's CPU is up to 3.8x faster than whatever intel CPU is in the iMac Pro, so you're getting about 52% more CPU performance with Ultra's doubling in CPU cores vs the Max, so definitely feeling some linear scaling limitations with the interconnect.

rovr138 5y ago
There has to be overhead to not have to deal with the multi-cpu architecture in software. It's impressive
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  Though maybe we can get some NUMA-like affinity control for the M1 Ultra, so HPC control freaks can finally tune the fuck out of this hardware.
  - rovr138 5y ago
    I'm actually curious about memory. Since they're 2 distinct chips, will a single chip be able to handle 128GB? Not sure how the interconnect works.
    - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
      Yes, as all NUMA machines do, one CPU can access all memory, both local (to the CPU) and global (through the interconnect). The problem is that there is a significant latency cost when a CPU accesses non-local memory (limitations of the interconnect). So the HPC people writing their algorithms make sure that this happens at a minimal amount, by enforcing that the data each CPU is using is allocated locally as possible (ex. by using special affinity controls provided by libnuma) I was just curious if these kinds of optimizations are possible in the M1 Ultra.
      - MBCook 5y ago
        But IS there an interconnect? The way Apple presented it sounded more like the chips talked at a lower layer, much like if it was all built as one physical chip, than when you have two normal chips with an interconnect fabric. Someone will figure it out with benchmarks or something.

turndown 5y ago

I was kind of disappointed as I expected this to be the keyboard thing that was leaked to the news a bit ago; seemed to fit just right with their arguments of portability, connectivity, modularity.

rovr138 5y ago
I just couldn't see it. Specially for the studio. The thermals would have been insane to deal with
jazzyjackson 5y ago
yea they kinda glossed over "modularity", I didn't see any modules...
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  This is pretty squarely marketed towards current users of 27" iMacs and iMac Pro's, so from that perspective the "modularity" being spoken of is the ability to use the display with things that aren't the Mac as well as the ability to upgrade the display. Thunderbolt 4 also makes it better than the previous TB3 iMacs in terms of external expansion.
- copperx 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure they meant "buy and connect up to three our new displays however you like".

lwkl 5y ago

Great they avoided $1000 stand memes by offering a more reasonable $400 stand. To be more serious looks like a pretty good product that fits well into offices. I stopped working in IT in 2018 but back then SFF was all the rage and a powerful workstation with a smaller form factor will probably be attractive to a lot of customers.

hughrr 5y ago
I want a vesa mount one which should be cheaper. Hrumph.
- hagbarddenstore 5y ago
  It's "free". No additional cost.

nerdjon 5y ago

More and more I see the M1 chips and I wish Mac worked seriously well for gaming. Would love too see something like Proton but for Mac (given up hopes for native support). I hate that I have my gaming PC and then my Mac for everything else. I have to wonder though what their plan is for the M2. Are they laying the groundwork for when the M2 comes out all of these variants will be ready at the same time? Or a gradual upgrade but the same series (Normal, Pro, Max, and then Ultra) for each.

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
Same. That chunky PC serves only one purpose now and rest of the time is unused.
- nerdjon 5y ago
  The unused part is what bothers me, like I actively make sure I use windows for as little outside of gaming for various reasons. But for the price to use it, ok not rarely since I game a lot... but considering I also have consoles. I would say I use my Mac more. I just wonder if this is ever going to be a realistic alternative or am I just always going to have 2 personal computers.
  - tannedNerd 5y ago
    What Im hoping for is with fiber/5G things like GeforceNow become more popular. I used it recently thanks to 6 free months from ATT when I had an unscheduled layover due to a missed flight, and it was actually playable with 7 Days to Die (a FPS). Granted it wasn't as good as my home machine, but this was also over hotel wifi so not bad
nouveaux 5y ago
I don't feel the need to play cutting edge games anymore. Playing Windows games in Parallel on my M1 is pretty good. I was shocked to see how well it worked. It's unlikely to run Elden Ring well. However, the vast majority of games are fine.

ShakataGaNai 5y ago

As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22 core, Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram, motherboard, 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of $5,000 That CPU isn't as powerful as the one the M1 Ultra beat in their specs, but should be about the same GPU as they compared and beat. If the benchmarks are to be believed.... the $4,000 Mac Studio will be an absolute powerhouse in the price/performance/power market for quite some amount of time. Normally I'd make some snarky remark about Apple Tax, but in this case they look to have the PC hardware equivalent very well and truly beat on cost. For now.

xemdetia 5y ago
If anything this just reminds me how frustrating their product line was pre-M1 for so many years. I'm still dealing with the legacy of having to work with people with 16GB as the ceiling and projects that simply do not fit in them.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  If RAM is your bottleneck, then you will still have the same problem. Apple still ships 8GB machines.
  - xemdetia 5y ago
    I'm not speaking 8GB as an end-user problem, but as a developer problem. Most of my developing machines are 32GB+ but I have to create successful workflows for macbooks that only have 16GB.
traceroute66 5y ago
> As a comparsion a quick build on PCPartPicker: Xeon E5 22 core, Radeon RX 6900 XT, case, power supply, 64 gb of ram, motherboard, 1TB SSD and CPU cooler. Comes in at just shy of $5,000 And that's just the parts. Don't forget the M1 Ultra will use less electrical power too.
ajconway 5y ago
Don't forget that any of the M1-family chips are absolutely crushing the competition in single-core performance.

ushakov 5y ago

The design looks like it was designed to be a fan, but they accidentally added a computer chip

TheRealPomax 5y ago
Cool

areoform 5y ago

I would like to highlight just how much Apple is focusing on their customers and use cases right now. It seems that they're targeting products to what their professional customers actually want. And in this case, it's a 3.7" little thing that can process 18 streams of 8k video (fully specced out). That's kinda crazy, and they're doing it at a price point that's competitive compared to all of the companies out there. Bravo Apple. I'd love to see what they have in store for designers and programmers next.

rkuykendall-com 5y ago
> what they have in store for [...] programmers They just (November) released the best MacBook Pro since 2015. Original keyboard back. Escape key back. Utility keys back. Mag-Safe back. HDMI back. SD card back. Headphone jack back. And all with a brand new M1 Pro chip.
rconti 5y ago
It's insane how boldly (for Apple) they focused on ports and cables. I can't remember a previous demo video that showed so many ugly cables hanging out the back of the machine. They've finally realized it's a selling point!
- ilamont 5y ago
  My jaw hit the floor when I saw USB A ports. If only it had multiple HDMI ...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    What would you use multiple HDMI ports for? Do you exclusively use HDMI only screens/tv?
    - ilamont 5y ago

gbrown_ 5y ago

Can't wait to see a teardown of the cooling solution. Not sure how the air flows between the bottom and the heat sink as there's a board between them.

rovr138 5y ago
It looked like it had space in the back and then the blowers were in the front to force the air over. Then it went out the top. Looks very interesting. I'm curious of benchmarks and if there's throttling.

ejb999 5y ago

I'd buy one in a second if only it would support running vmware fusion - I still have to have one foot in Windows world, and not being able to spin-up and old windows vm is a deal breaker for me. (M1 chips won't support it). Sure hope my latest macbookpro with intel chip lasts a while, I fear it may be one of the last ones they make.

gzer0 5y ago
Have you tried Parallels? It works incredibly well on the M1 macs. https://www.parallels.com/ https://www.parallels.com/
- hughrr 5y ago
  Also UTM if you are a cheap ass like me. https://github.com/utmapp/UTM https://github.com/utmapp/UTM I use native virtualisation to run Debian arm64 and emulation to run Debian x86-64
  - temac 5y ago
    Quite slow and not multicore for x64-64 though. It eventually works, but you better take a spare PC for any non trivial task.
    - hughrr 5y ago
      I usually just run one in AWS when I need one if I'm honest.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  They may be referring to the Non-Arm Windows. Let me tell you Parallels running Windows ARM is the snappiest Windows experience I have had in years....only problem is that its Windows 11 :/ Really wish there was someway to easily run Windows 7 or 8 on this thing. It would be bliss. Now that Windows XP Source has been leaked, maybe we can come together as a community, try to harden the OS and make it forward compatible with ARM. Bring back the Windows that people actually somewhat liked! If only that wasn't a monumental task :/

sys_64738 5y ago

It looks like the son of the Mac Cube.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

paxys 5y ago

Third/fourth/fifth time's the charm I guess? I really hope apple gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this time.

the_lucifer 5y ago
> I really hope apple gets the "Mac Pro" form factor right this time. Tbh, they did mention at the end that their Apple Silicon Mac Pro is coming later down the line, which I'm guessing will focus more on upgradability and modularity
- mkaic 5y ago
  hopefully M2 as well!

flembat 5y ago

Good to see the kind of computer we can all afford in ten years or so.

rovr138 5y ago
This is not really geared towards 'all'. You can see that on the presentation and who they had talking.
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  You missed the "ten years from now". I will happily pay $300-#400 for this machine 10 years from now to use as a random streaming box sat in a closet.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    I did that with a Mac Mini, but at some point it seems to have entered a permanently throttled state for some reason. Disk IO and CPU performance are atrocious, and idk why. Even tried installing Linux on it, but it's still incredibly slow. Maybe some sensor broke? Whatever it is, I've become much less trusting of Apple hardware that is that old.
    - brimble 5y ago
      I assume you cleaned the dust out? Otherwise I think your guess of a faulty sensor is most likely. [EDIT] Could be some thermal paste going bad, too, I guess.

loudthing 5y ago

Darn. I was really hoping for a new Macbook Air :/

ksec 5y ago

The M1 Ultra is likely using CoWoS from TSMC. https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tsmc/cowos https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tsmc/cowos

BonoboIO 5y ago

The design of it looks a bit off to me. Like a cheap mac-ish intel nuc designed by huawei with their matebooks. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17396818/huawei-matebook-x-pro-laptop-review-specs-price https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17396818/huawei-matebook-...

neal_jones 5y ago
Agreed
brimble 5y ago
It looks like they made a taller computer then cut it off 2/3 of the way down. Something about the proportions read as simply wrong.
- BonoboIO 5y ago
  But if it works, well its better than Jony Ive‘s „design is everything, function is last“ approach. - Like the Mac Pro (2013) which was thermal limited even with the launch configuration and could not be refreshed because more power would mean less power through throttling - Magic Mouse 2 which well u could not use while charging - Macbook Pro Touchbar which is there because there was nothing else to „inovate“ - MacBook Pro Keyboard which is so thin and lookin good that the owner has to replace it every 6 month
  - olliej 5y ago
    I always felt like the Touch Bar was needed so people could "see" something to compensate for the cost of the touchid + whatever the MacBook called the Secure Enclave? (I know it's T2 in the iMac)
  - brimble 5y ago
    I agree with some of this, but will note that actually using a Magic Mouse 2 cured me of joking about the design (I was entirely on the "LOL how dumb" train before that). It wasn't an issue, in practice, and did keep me from just using it plugged in all the time (which is what I tend to do with other wireless things at my desk that have integrated rechargeable batteries).

Kalanos 5y ago

yes! i have been so worried about my macbook 2014 dying because I don't want the new macbooks. this looks awesome.

livinglist 5y ago

can’t wait for M1 Ultra Pro Max Utimate

GeekyBear 5y ago

Interesting tweet from Hector Martin, who is leading the Linux port: >Chances are our kernel will Just work on M1 Ultra with just device tree changes, might not even need any m1n1 changes. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882

speed_spread 5y ago
Good. None of these releases matter to me if all those machines can run is Mac OS. I'm not a Linux freak, but I like machines that last a long time. Long term support is the weak spot of any proprietary design. Given the incredible hardware capabilities of these new boxes, the 5 or 6 years official expected official lifecycle is waaay too short.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  Latest MacOS is supported by Mac Pro from 9 years ago, that's pretty good. Macbook Pro from 7 years ago. These M1 machines are the new baseline, I wouldn't be surprised if they're supported a decade from now, it's not like MacOS is going to need 10x the CPU/RAM to run in 2032 knock on wood https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/ https://www.apple.com/macos/monterey/ (have to scroll all the way down for supported devices)
  - humanwhosits 5y ago
    But chrome will

srvmshr 5y ago

I am genuinely crestfallen that there was no update to Mac Mini. That thing has the right balance for most computer science folks who want a Mac. Not everyone needs/runs a silicon Godzilla on their desk after all. As of the current lineup, Mini is still stuck with 16 GB RAM and a disappointing number of ports.

xienze 5y ago
What update were they going to do? Make an M1 Max model? That would cut into sales for the base Studio.
- infinityio 5y ago
  They don't have a desktop M1 Pro implementation yet afaik?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dopu 5y ago
    This would make sense -- you can get the mac mini at the base M1, upgrade it to an M1 Pro, or jump up to a Mac Studio for M1 Max and above.
thaw13579 5y ago
There's only a gap of roughly $500 between a maxed out mini and the entry studio, so perhaps the studio is the answer to what you're looking for?
- tonguez 5y ago
  M1 mini with 16GB RAM (most possible RAM): $1100 entry studio: $2000 That's a pretty big gap. Basically it means you have to shell out $2000+ if you want to do video editing on any M1 mac. Buying a brand new computer to do video editing that has only 16GB RAM in 2022 is unjustifiable. $2k+ is too much for most people especially young "creatives" that are making entertainment (videos). Lots of people here make hundreds of thousands a year but none of those people make that money doing video editing or working in entertainment.

jsz0 5y ago

Apple finally releases a powerful affordable desktop computer. Now I am worried it's the start of WW3 or otherwise the end of the world. Going outside now to look for flying pigs

randcraw 5y ago
What? $2000 for the Studio plus $1600 for their 5K display means Apple's new entry level workstation now costs $3600. That's a LOT more expensive than the old iMac 27 i7 at about $2400. To sum up, Apple just hiked their entry level workstation's price by $1200. AND they convinced you they performed magic. No, I think that flying pig you saw was proof that Jobs' reality distortion field is still alive and well.
- mkaic 5y ago
  Except you don't have to buy their display, that's part of why the Studio is so nice. You can buy any generic display you want that doesn't cost 1600 bucks. For what you get, the 2k Studio is an absolute steal in terms of compute per watt, I/O, form factor, and longevity (Macs last ages). Plus, having 64 gigs of VRAM is absolutely amazing at that price point.
- azinman2 5y ago
  The Mac mini is more equivalent to the iMac. This is a step beyond, a bit more like the iMac Pro, which was always more expensive.
- olliej 5y ago
  The old iMac Pro used to cost an absurd amount - like $5k IIRC. That is the old entry level "pro" Mac. Which is quite a bit more than the studio + display. A vanilla iMac (or blueberry :D ) is a consumer device.
arvinsim 5y ago
I find the M1 Max configurations reasonable(almost equivalent to their Intel Mac Mini) and the M1 Ultra configurations obscene.

rconti 5y ago

Perfect. Recently went to a 40" ultrawide display to share between work laptop (during work hours) and personal desktop (after hours) to simplify my desk, and felt the Mini was probably just a little too limiting/low-end. Finally, the replacement to my 2015 iMac 5k.

arvinsim 5y ago
What's the name of the monitor?
- rconti 5y ago
  Lenovo P40w-20. Dell's has one for a year or more. LG just released theirs as well. I think those are the only 3.

QuikAccount 5y ago

This is such a random thing to complain about but I hate these Mac product pages with the animations as you scroll. I guess they are designed for mobile but I navigate them on a desktop using a mouse wheel and they always look super clunky.

MBCook 5y ago
Apple does them FAR better than anyone else. I can’t remember if they did it first, or just popularized it, but it works well for what it is. That said, while it looks cool, after the first time you’ve used it it’s just a pain to navigate. I kind of wish it was a separate “intro” page or something. (They’re annoying on mobile too, but work better than desktop)
cwdegidio 5y ago
Yeah, I don't get it. They are such a UX nightmare. My company was trying to implement something like that in our latest redesign of our site and I put my foot down about it. We are in the financial B2B space and I had to explain to the marketing team that people come to our site for information... not to be shown cute animation. Also (I haven't tested Apples take on it), they are often ADA nightmares.
kube-system 5y ago
Mouse wheels mostly just don't have a good input resolution. It's one of the main reasons I stopped using a mouse and switched to an apple trackpad full time. I can't stand static pages that scroll in chunks either.
- dilap 5y ago
  it sucks w/ trackpad too tho! it's just totally breaks any physicality to scrolling it's insane to me that they keep using this
gowld 5y ago
It's terrible on mobile too.
5y ago

alberth 5y ago

Mac Pro scale up? How is this going to scale up to a Mac Pro, especially related to RAM? The Ultra caps at 128 GB of RAM (which isn't much for video editing, especially given that the GPU uses the system RAM). Today's Mac Pro goes up to 1.5TB (and has dedicated video RAM above this). If the Mac Pro is say, 4 Ultra's stacked together - that means the new Mac Pro will be capped at 512GB of RAM. Would Apple stack 12 Ultra's together to get to 1.5TB of RAM? Seems unlikely.

rpmisms 5y ago
Production houses working on massive projects will get the Pro. Anyone else will get the Studio and use proxy clips.
stirlo 5y ago
Hector Martin who’s developing Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon recently tweeted about this. The M1 Pro, M1 Max and the at the time unannounced “Double M1 Max” have a completely different series identifier (T600x) to the forth coming Mac Pro chip (T6500) so no it won’t just be a doubling/quadrupling of an existing design. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1498317101245034502?s=21 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1498317101245034502?s=21

xwowsersx 5y ago

Could/would this machine makes sense as a development machine? I use a Macbook Pro (M1) and it's always docked...I basically don't need it to be transportable. I could also use more power (I'm regularly running a bunch of docker containers + PyCharm + DataGrip + Android Studio).

eyelidlessness 5y ago
I’ll pretty likely swap this in for my almost always docked intel 16”, and keep that around for the rare times I go mobile.
eertami 5y ago
I don't think any M1 chip makes sense at all if you need to work with a lot of docker containers. Orders of magnitude faster to do that on a Linux machine.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Not my experience at all, docker works just fine on this M1 Mac Mini, and I use docker heavily.
  - eertami 5y ago
    A test suite that takes under 2m to run under Linux docker takes over 4m when I run it on the M1. Yet the M1 is marginally faster than this i7-1185g7. For regular development reloading apps etc it's similarly sluggish. "Just fine" sure, but that time adds up. The M1 is an interesting CPU, but OSX is less popular than Linux for software development. Apple working to support Linux on the M1 would increase sales, though realistically with the other high margin product sales they do not really _need_ extra sales.
    - xwowsersx 5y ago
      Mac is perfectly fine for heavy Docker usage in my experience. Also OSX is extremely popular for software development. Be interested to see data that corroborates your assertions.

ar_lan 5y ago

Why is the M1 Max not... the maximum spec?

andrewjl 5y ago
It is the maximum for a single chip. Ultra is two chips in a single package. I think the name subtly emphasizes the distinction.
eddieroger 5y ago
It is the most they can get on one die, but they can glue multiple dies together and get more.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

The whole GPU thing is really funny. The M1 Ultra is supposedly more powerful now than an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000, but I'm guessing really truly only for professional work. If you tried to play games on it or develop games for it, you're gonna find that it's less powerful than the standard AMD integrated GPU on a 5k iMac from 2015 until you come across software or build software using Metal directly. Both Wine and Parallels usage today provide poor graphics performance.

nanna 5y ago

Is it just me or have apple clearly not tested this page on Android Firefox?

ShamelessC 5y ago
You're not alone.

borodi 5y ago

I imagine the mac pro is going to have a Super Sayan M1

londons_explore 5y ago

So it has USB-C... yet can't be powered via USB-C?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
acherion 5y ago
The maximum power draw of the Mac Studio according to Apple spec sheet is 370W. The maximum power draw over USB-C seems to be 100W.

colesantiago 5y ago

Is there any point to building a PC anymore?

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
At the moment the PC market is upside down, too. If you're building a professional workstation, you'll find with current prices that a business XPS desktop is cheaper by a significant margin over building your own workstation with the highest end parts available today.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
Games.

etaioinshrdlu 5y ago

Hey look, it's finally the "Missing Mac" as longed for here: https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-missing-mac/ https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2020/06/12/the-missing-ma... and here: https://www.cultofmac.com/1899/the-missing-macintosh/ https://www.cultofmac.com/1899/the-missing-macintosh/ Fans have been asking for such a thing for so many years.

monitron 5y ago
100% what I was thinking. Sounds silly, but it's going to massively simplify my setup and change the whole way I work.

bogwog 5y ago

The 2TB option is an extra $400. That's $200/TB. The 4TB option is $250/TB. The 8TB option is $275/TB. That looks like planned obsolescence to me. A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner than a customer with 8TB, so this pricing strategy discourages people from buying the more future-proof options. Other SSDs on the market tend to be cheaper per TB as you go up in size, but Apple's seem to be completely backwards (and obscenely overpriced, of course). Or am I being too cynical here, and this is just that famous "luxury tax"?

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
A lot of professionals use external drives for their work, and Apple has the right of charging beyond market value per TB of storage because the space is integrated, so you'll find that most people will purchase on-the-curve storage and rely on high-performance commodity drives for day-to-day artifacts and asset work.
my123 5y ago
Those are desktops, and Thunderbolt/USB 4 allows for fast SSDs. You can have the OS installed on an external drive too. It's much less of an issue there than on laptops.
kayodelycaon 5y ago
That seems pretty typical for Apple. Upgrading from 512gb to 1tb on a MacBook Air is $200.
turdnagel 5y ago
I've never heard of an accusation of planned obsolescence based on price before. > A customer with 1TB will likely want to upgrade sooner Though I have no data to back it up, I think this is your mistaken assumption. I think it's much more likely that people upgrade because of CPU/RAM than disk space.
- FranksTV 5y ago
  Yeah you can throw an external SSD on a thunderbolt connection and unless you're editing video you'll never know the difference.

dmje 5y ago

The clauses on those sentences don't scan. Stunningly compact. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous performance. I mean, you've gotta either go Stunning size. Extensive connectivity. Outrageous performance. or Stunningly compact Extensively connected. Outrageously performant. Anyway. Not sure anyone apart from me will care.

mkaic 5y ago
Eh, reads fine to me. Helps break up the list so that people don't just skim over it, I'd guess.

tonguez 5y ago

Don't a lot of people want a computer in the 1000-2000$ range? The average person who wants to do video editing on an M1 mac just wants >=32GB of RAM. The only way to get that is to shell out $2000+. M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for $1100 M1 Max Mac Studio with 32GB RM and 512GB SSD for $2000 Yeah because nobody ever buys a computer that costs between $1000 and $2000... ? A 512GB SSD in a $2k computer? People who deal with HD video are going to want at least 1TB right? So it basically starts at $2200? Is Apple going to release anything anytime soon for the young/not-rich kids who want to do real video editing (need >=32GB RAM)?

SpacePortKnight 5y ago

Apple claims M1 Ultra is faster than 28 Core Intel Xeon W chip, which they ship in Mac Pro. If that's true, then Mac Studio is an excellent value. Mac Pro with 28 Core, 96GB RAM, 1TB SSD = $14,199 Mac Studio with M1 Ultra (48GPU Cores), 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD = $4,800 Also it looks like they compared their CPU performance with the latest intel generation in their demo. > "16-core PC desktop CPU performance data from testing Core i9-12900K with DDR5 memory" https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/#footnote https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/#footnote It's kinda scary how monster of a company Apple has become lately. Their product line-up in compute is now unmatched.

andjd 5y ago

I'm really happy they're not going with a iMac pro form factor for these. Having a separate display and computer is great for avoiding e-waste. There are a ton of iMacs out there that have obsolete hardware but a screen that still works great.

wmeredith 5y ago
I died inside when they got rid of target display mode for iMacs.
- infinityio 5y ago
  I've seen projects online about converting 5k iMacs into external displays by essentially ripping out the insides and putting in a driver board instead - I wonder what the relative cost (/value proposition) of that is compared to these new displays if you don't need a webcam?
- rsynnott 5y ago
  This was initially kinda justifiable; when the first 5K iMac came out there was no commonly available connection that could do 5K (the iMac used a somewhat overclocked DP link internally, I think), so their only option would have been two DP cables (a configuration that then also had very limited support). That excuse really went away with TB3 and newer iterations of DP, tho, and it's pretty disappointing that they didn't bring it back at that point.
- RotANobot 5y ago
  Ouch! I always thought that was an awesome feature and didn’t know they got rid of it.

georgeburdell 5y ago

I don’t buy Apple products for philosophical reasons, but the Mac Mini, and now Mac Studio, are everything I wish Intel NUCs were. I have an Intel Skull Canyon system from 2016 as my gaming PC and it fits in my wife’s purse. Since then, the gaming NUC variants have gotten larger and larger so that they’re nearly mini-ATX form factor again.

dangus 5y ago
You should get into the small form factor (SFF) Mini ITX gaming scene. Brands like Velkase, Custom MOD (in Ukraine, cannot currently conduct business), Phanteks, DAN Case, NZXT H1 V2, and many others are really interesting options. I've built systems that use either SFX PSUs or Flex ATX PSUs (the latter are usually modified with Noctua fans to quiet them down, so using a case that requires an SFX power supply is more noob-friendly and will have more generous power limits) The Optimum Tech channel on YouTube is a great as a general small form factor resource. Here's a case roundup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8T81nuLFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8T81nuLFM Gamers Nexus sometimes covers small form factor, but Optimum Tech has a lot more focus on SFF in particular.
Shadonototra 5y ago
> I don’t buy Apple products for philosophical reasons philosophical? they are the most responsible company ever https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/ they push performance limit while maintaining very low power consumption What's philosophical into buying Intel or Microsoft Windows that constantly spy on you and forces bloat on your face year after year? Apple reinvest into its OS and HW, i don't understand your logic
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Apple pushes promotions of their services into my face all the time. Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple Whatever. I hate it. At least with Windows I can disable it once and forget about it.
  - Shadonototra 5y ago

avar 5y ago

The chassis seems to be around the right size for a DIY project of combining it with an iMac G4 swivel display [1]. With a modern display it would make for a really nice 3rd party accessory. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30576310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30576310

greendave 5y ago

Nice machine, but for all the lip service to sustainability and environmental friendliness, the insistence of soldering everything in makes for a disposable device. In particular, once the SSD goes, it’s just a very expensive brick.

boboguitar 5y ago

Can I build my large xcode project in less than 20 minutes with this?

thrusong 5y ago

Where does this fit in the lineup of Macs? The 27" iMac is gone and the Mac Studio looks like it's taking the place of that or could even be the new Pro. I don't want that thing on my desktop, I want a big all-in-one. At least the Studio Display looks like it could be used to stuff some kind of M chip in down the road for a "pro" all-in-one option.

newaccount74 5y ago
Using the 27" iMac with lots of stuff plugged in is a bit annoying. I occasionally have cables coming loose when I adjust the display. And it's impossible to get additional displays that match the iMacs look.
- thrusong 5y ago
  That didn't match my experience with my 27" now-dead iMac, which I'm eager to replace with an Apple silicon model. As for the "additional displays that match" comment, I did say above that it looks like the Studio Display could be the form factor for a new 27" iMac. It's got an A15 chip in it already, as well as multiple ports on the back so they probably could get something less powerful than an M1 Ultra in it soon.
arvinsim 5y ago
The Mac Studio + Display is a replacement for the discontinued iMac Pro, not the 27" iMac. Just look at the pricing on the combo.

mrcwinn 5y ago

If anyone thinks Apple is not very serious about AR/VR consumer products, their renewed focus on creative professionals, intense workloads, and GPU performance seems to suggest otherwise. Whatever the marketing out of Microsoft Surface, it's the Mac that has always enabled creative workflows. I'm genuinely more excited about the Mac than any other product, which I haven't felt or said for many years. Nice work, Apple silicon and hardware teams!

arvinsim 5y ago
> Whatever the marketing out of Microsoft Surface, it's the Mac that has always enabled creative workflows. I'm genuinely more excited about the Mac than any other product, which I haven't felt or said for many years. A professional will work with whatever tools he needs, Mac or otherwise. It's pretty narrow-minded to think that it's the domain of one OS.

cosmiccatnap 5y ago

aetherspawn 5y ago

It would be nice if it was rack mountable.

pipeline_peak 5y ago

I don’t even care about the specs. Just love the fact they fit it all in that tiny case, flush under a Studio display monitor. There’s something 90s about it, SGI maybe?

robotresearcher 5y ago
Sun SPARCstation IPC: a lovely form factor and a great client machine. The matching monitor could sit on top. The whining fans were not so great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_IPC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation_IPC It was quickly obsolete as CPUs got fast and too hot for that box.

dcchambers 5y ago

It's a little funny looking, proportionally speaking, but I am so happy to see some ports on the front. It can be incredibly awkward to try and find ports on the back of a machine. At first glance it seems a little expensive, but the value based on performance is actually fantastic. Well done, apple.

Havoc 5y ago

Easily the most obnoxious scroll/parallax presentation I've seen thus far 2022. Guess I'll watch to mkhb video to see what the product is

simonjgreen 5y ago

This gives me distinct G4 Mac Pro tower aesthetic vibes but with a modern twist. Love it :)

w-m 5y ago

The amount of compute paired with the shared memory and fast bandwidth would make this an awesome fit for machine learning. But for PyTorch, the framework everybody is using now at least in computer vision, there seems to be no support at all for the GPU or the neural cores (which the presentation went on and on about). I guess I’d better not hold my breath about support there, given Apples historical stance on support third party APIs/frameworks?

coder543 5y ago
Whether PyTorch supports it... I'm not sure, but Tensorflow is still an immensely popular framework, and it is supported: https://blog.tensorflow.org/2020/11/accelerating-tensorflow-performance-on-mac.html https://blog.tensorflow.org/2020/11/accelerating-tensorflow-... https://developer.apple.com/metal/tensorflow-plugin/ https://developer.apple.com/metal/tensorflow-plugin/

youngtaff 5y ago

Boy is that an ugly box… the proportions seem all wrong to me - looks like they just stacked a bunch on Mac Mini’s (which has pretty nice proportions)

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kulix425 5y ago

torginus 5y ago

As a dev, I think this is neat - but unfortunately, to this very day, the most important workloads usually are single-threaded, even the ones that are multi-threaded, rarely scale to more than 8 cores. This usually means that the advanced M1 variants don't really offer an advantage over the base offering, although, more RAM is always nice.

tomaskafka 5y ago
It's long past the time to change this. Even Xcode now has a much more parallelized build system.
arvinsim 5y ago
No CPU, x86 or ARM, has broken through the 2K GeekBench benchmark. The CPU that could do that would be innovative.

rsync 5y ago

I see that the official Apple specs mention "support for 5 displays" and the tech specs state: "Support for up to four Pro Display XDRs (6K resolution at 60Hz and over a billion colors) over USB-C and one 4K display (4K resolution at 60Hz and over a billion colors) over HDMI" ... so I am very pleasantly surprised there ... >4k resolution on the four Thunderbolt ports and then a bonus 4k port via HDMI. The same question arises as with the mac mini: Why can't the additional (leftover) ports be used for even more displays ? In this case, there are two more ports on the front (either USB-C or TB4) that can handle a display - why is that not possible ?

grecy 5y ago
I have to assume at some point you simply hit the limit of how many pixels it can push out. Remember, you're talking about running FOUR displays at a resolution that was unheard of on the desktop two years ago AND another display at 4k simply as a "bonus".

Daub 5y ago

It’s interesting that they are demoing a 3d app on the screen. Does this mean that finally 3D on a Mac is not underpowered. The hold point always used to be the graphics card, but will apples new chip be equal to the task?

rubyist5eva 5y ago

Sweet just in time for my april performance review and hardware upgrade :)

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vietvu 5y ago

Apple CPU these days are so impressive. I am getting out of Apple ecosystem, but cannot ignore those.

novok 5y ago

Biggest missing thing for me is no internal M.2 SSD slots where you can swap storage. Getting external closures is annoying, really wish it came with 2 or 4 m.2 slots that you could put on the top or bottom. Cables break, wiggle around, get moved around during data transfer and cause it to get corrupted or fail and more.

jkestner 5y ago
Try: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx https://satechi.net/products/stand-hub-for-mac-mini-with-ssd-enclosure https://satechi.net/products/stand-hub-for-mac-mini-with-ssd... Guess this is what "modular" means. Now if there was just a cableless solution, we'd be living the Jonathan modular concept from the 80s.

jedwhite 5y ago

I feel like they missed an opportunity to call this the Mac M1 Maxi.

intrasight 5y ago

Still no ECC. For some reason that bothers me on this class of machine.

sidlls 5y ago

The "overview" is just a graphic with links to an event page and video content. That isn't an overview. An overview is a blurb of text summarizes the subject matter. I am really, really sick of these gated "watch the video" information vehicles. I read much faster than video plays: stick to text if you want my attention for things like this.

bla3 5y ago

Here's hoping they bring back a usb-a port on their laptops too.

fomine3 5y ago

We miss M1 Pro Mac Mini?

TedShiller 5y ago

the casting lol

daniel-grigg 5y ago

Given the size I wonder if it’d make a practical laptop replacement for work? Just toss in your bag when you go home!

deagle50 5y ago

That heatsink is too small for my taste. Should have gone full cube, still thr coolest Mac ever.

Charlie11 5y ago

betageek 5y ago

I'm kind of disappointed, Apple make such a big thing of being green but keep making machines that aren't upgradeable in these tiny form factors. I was really hoping for a more affordable Mac Pro with easily accessible memory/ram and some expansion slots.

arvinsim 5y ago

Missed opportunity to add FaceID especially since the A13 is there.

Maursault 5y ago

I generally like Apple designs, but I think the Studio is ugly and uninspired. It reminds me of a cheesy HiFi component. If they couldn't come up with a better original design, they should have abandoned pretty design and put a handle on the top to make it easier to move around. Also, I think it is ridiculously expensive, should have maxed out closer to $4K, not $10K. Also, since it is thick enough, they could have jammed in a little wide-screen right on the front as a backup or aux monitor. For $10K, I'd like a little wide-screen display on the front.