Anybody got $14K for the new Mac Studio M3 Ultra?

[mikehalloran]

https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/

Base is $3,999 — Apple M3 Ultra chip with 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine 96GB Unified RAM, 1TB SSD storage, Front: Two Thunderbolt 5 ports, SDXC card slot, Back: Four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI port, 10Gb Ethernet port, headphone jack

If you want to max it out.

Apple M3 Ultra chip with 32-core CPU, 80‑core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine + $1,500

512GB unified memory + $4,000

16TB SSD storage + $4,600

The new Studio M4 Max starts at $1,999 — Apple M4 Max chip with 14‑core CPU, 32‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine 32GB Unified RAM, 512GB SSD storage, Front: Two USB-C ports (USB 3.2 Gen 2), SDXC card slot, Back: Four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB‑A ports, HDMI port, 10Gb Ethernet port, headphone jack

To max it out, the add-ons are the same as above.

It is speculated that the M4 Ultra chip is being saved for the Mac Pro 9.1 expected later this year

[HCMarkus]

$4k is about what I paid for my M1 Studio Ultra, 64GB, 2TB. Three years later, it is still serving me quite nicely. Don't think I'll be trading it in anytime soon.

Interesting Apple didn't go to M4 Ultra. MIke, you are probably right... saving it for Mac Pro.

[James Steele]

Interesting Apple didn't go to M4 Ultra. MIke, you are probably right... saving it for Mac Pro.

Just read an interesting article about that today. Apparently, (according to the article), there will never be an M4 Ultra because Apple didn't include the UltraFusion connector on the M4 Max chip.

Below is an excerpt from this article at Cult of Mac:

Apple’s plan all along
And it seems Apple never planned to make an M4 Ultra. It left out a necessary component out of its latest family of processors: the UltraFusion connector.

While each M-series generation uses the same CPU and GPU cores, that’s not the only way the chips reuse components. Each Ultra processor is two Max chips grafted together. The graft requires what’s called an UltraFusion connector, though. And Apple never designed the M4 series with the necessary connector.

That’s what Apple told the French-language site Numerama, anyway. “There are no UltraFusion connectors on the M4 Max chip. It is therefore impossible to merge two fourth-generation chips to create an M4 Ultra,” according to a machine translation.

[HCMarkus]

Apple didn't include the UltraFusion connector on the M4 Max chip.

Apparently, some people were saying that about the M3, too...

[James Steele]

Apple didn't include the UltraFusion connector on the M4 Max chip.

Apparently, some people were saying that about the M3, too...

In the article, they reference an article in French where it wasn't "some people" but representatives from Apple who said this about the M4 Max. Not sure if it would be something one could verify with a visual inspection?

[HCMarkus]

Apple didn't include the UltraFusion connector on the M4 Max chip.

Apparently, some people were saying that about the M3, too...

In the article, they reference an article in French where it wasn't "some people" but representatives from Apple who said this about the M4 Max. Not sure if it would be something one could verify with a visual inspection?

I guess "Apple Rep" trumps "Some People."

[Rick Cornish]

I wonder how much more speed you’d get out of DP on one of these compared to my M2 Mac Studio?
M2 MAX WITH 12C CPU, 30C GPU
64GB UNIFIED MEMORY
2TB INTERNAL SSD STORAGE

[James Steele]

I wonder how much more speed you’d get out of DP on one of these compared to my M2 Mac Studio?
M2 MAX WITH 12C CPU, 30C GPU
64GB UNIFIED MEMORY
2TB INTERNAL SSD STORAGE

To be honest, I don’t think it would that dramatic but I’m not sure. I have an M1 Max (with 64G/2TB like you) and I don’t feel all that compelled to jump ship to the M4 Max. Maybe when they’re released into the wild and we get some real world reports? Perhaps it might be worthwhile in order to run at low buffer settings? I currently run at 256 most of the time.

[HCMarkus]

Check Geekbench Mac scores.

Use the M4 Laptops as a reference and compare.

I like this comparison:

Single core score for the M4 series is very close to my old 12 core Cheesegrater Multi score.

My M1 Studio Ultra scores 18k or so Multi. The M4 Max Multi hits like 25k.

[mikehalloran]

I wonder how much more speed you’d get out of DP on one of these compared to my M2 Mac Studio?
M2 MAX WITH 12C CPU, 30C GPU
64GB UNIFIED MEMORY
2TB INTERNAL SSD STORAGE

To be honest, I don’t think it would that dramatic but I’m not sure. I have an M1 Max (with 64G/2TB like you) and I don’t feel all that compelled to jump ship to the M4 Max. Maybe when they’re released into the wild and we get some real world reports? Perhaps it might be worthwhile in order to run at low buffer settings? I currently run at 256 most of the time.

Audio can only go so fast. Going from an 18 core iMac Pro to an M2 Studio Ultra, I think I have a fairly good baseline for comparison. Yes, DP is faster but not blazingly so. SampleTank loads faster but it wasn’t that slow on my iMP.

AV and AI rendering is where we will see real differences in horsepower. Premiere, FCPx, MAYA… big difference. As impressive as these machines are with AV, I think that AI rendering is the real goal. I bought ACE Studio AI the other day. Among its many tricks is to turn MusicXML exports with lyrics from Finale into a choir(ish) rendition using any of 80 AI voices or your own samples.

https://acestudio.ai/

It’s got a ways to go but I’m impressed already. Everything happens ‘in the box’, not online. My Studio took about 7 minutes to process a 4-part choral piece that’s about 4 minutes long—not bad (other than many of the words had terrible pronunciation—not an issue when making rehearsal tracks). Rendering (exporting the piece to 4 audio tracks) took about 15 minutes, however. Stem splitting I have done likewise takes longer than anything DP does.

I don’t have my iMP to compare anymore but my gut tells me that would take a lot, lot longer to process AI — and that the new Studio M3 Ultra might cut that time in half.

The first time I used my 2010 iMac i7 to render a few simple edits in a performance video in FCPx, I didn’t think it was working so I called Apple Support. On a screen share, they could see that it was working but it would take about a week for it to finish rendering. Oh… I had an iMac Pro not long after and that file took about 20 minutes (8 minutes on my Studio).

Although I really like the idea of a machine with a hot rod M3 Ultra, more RAM (I’ve 192GB now), 16TB onboard storage (instead of 8TB) and USB 4.2/TB5 ports (external storage nearly as fast as internal), my machine costs around $5K in 2023 and I have not outgrown it — not sure that I ever will.

Now that Apple has finally let us boot from an external and run any app without restrictions since Sequoia 15.1/Sonoma 14.7, I think that TB5 ports are the most exciting new feature. One can get an 8TB Thunderbolt 5 external around $1,600 or so that runs nearly as fast as onboard NAND— beats paying Apple $2,400 to add 8TB to either Studio.

[labman]

This all bodes sorta well for any coming Mac Pros. As they get back to giving us pro sized ram amounts and cores. Yeah will be costly. So was my last one.

[Rick Cornish]

To be honest, I don’t think it would that dramatic but I’m not sure. I have an M1 Max (with 64G/2TB like you) and I don’t feel all that compelled to jump ship to the M4 Max. Maybe when they’re released into the wild and we get some real world reports? Perhaps it might be worthwhile in order to run at low buffer settings? I currently run at 256 most of the time.

I agree. There's nothing I want to do that I can't do on my M2 Studio… and do it as fast as I need to (I rarely wait for my Mac to do anything).

Audio can only go so fast. Going from an 18 core iMac Pro to an M2 Studio Ultra, I think I have a fairly good baseline for comparison. Yes, DP is faster but not blazingly so. SampleTank loads faster but it wasn’t that slow on my iMP.

AV and AI rendering is where we will see real differences in horsepower. Premiere, FCPx, MAYA… big difference. As impressive as these machines are with AV, I think that AI rendering is the real goal. I bought ACE Studio AI the other day. Among its many tricks is to turn MusicXML exports with lyrics from Finale into a choir(ish) rendition using any of 80 AI voices or your own samples.

Agree, 100%. Audio (unless, I suppose, you're into hundreds of tracks of VSL) just doesn't use that much horsepower. Video—on the other hand—needs all you can give it.

…I think that TB5 ports are the most exciting new feature

I agree 100%… though, given that my M2 machine does everything I currently need, I couldn't justify buying an M3 or M4 just for the TB5 ports.

In summary—glad to hear Apple is continuing to develop, upgrade, and improve the Mac Studio—but it doesn't entice me to buy another one… yet.

[mhschmieder]

Well, my 2017 iMac that I spent $200 to rebuild last October, is giving signs again of giving up the ghost for good, so my patience in waiting for the new Studios vs. the new Minis (or whatever they're calling them now), has likely paid off.

Surprisingly, no talk on GS yet, at least when I checked yet again earlier today. I could have sworn that was where I saw in-depth discussions and comparisons of all the models when the last batch of desktop Macs came out last autumn.

I didn't expect a 2:1 price difference between the two basic choices, so I'm going to be looking for where the sweet spot is for the low-end model relative to last autumn's releases.

[mhschmieder]

Ah, the GS discussion of the new Mac Studio models has finally arrived, in their Music Computers sub-forum.

Unlike so much over there, the New Mac announcements usually stay on point for a while and link to valuable articles and performance specs.

[nk_e]

FWIW

Early results are trickling in. I think this is based on only one or two scores, so take with a grain of salt.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/06/m3-ultra ... benchmark/

I’m jumping from my 10 core iMac Pro though…finally!