Mac Studio

The Mac Studio is a small-form-factor workstation computer developed and marketed by Apple. It is Apple's professional Mac desktop, sitting above the consumer-range Mac Mini and iMac. It is configurable with either the M4 Max or M3 Ultra system on a chip.

Overview

The Mac Studio is a desktop personal computer, designed to sit above the consumer-level Mac Mini and iMac. From its launch in 2022 until 2026, it was sold alongside the professional-targeted Mac Pro. The Mac Studio has an identical width and depth to the 2010–2023 Mac Mini form factor, 7.7 inches (200 mm), but it stands taller at 3.7 inches (94 mm).

The Mac Studio was initially offered in two ARM-based SoC: the M1 Max or the M1 Ultra, which combines two M1 Max chips in one package. It has four USB-C port with Thunderbolt 4 and USB 40Gbps capabilities, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI (up to 4K @ 60 Hz), 10 Gigabit Ethernet with Lights Out Management and a headphone jack. The front panel has two USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4 in M1 Ultra models) and an SD card slot (that supports SDXC cards and UHS-II bus), making it the first desktop Mac since the 2012 Mac Pro to have I/O on the front. It is cooled by a pair of double-sided blowers and a mesh of holes on the bottom and back of the case, which helps reduce the noise of fans spinning. Nevertheless, there have been reports of excessive fan noise.

Mac Studio models with the Ultra SoC are heavier than the Max-equipped models, as they exchange the aluminum heat sink for one composed of copper. Apple says the Mac Studio performs 50 percent faster than a Mac Pro with a 16-core Intel Xeon processor.

The Mac Studio was introduced alongside the Apple Studio Display, a 27-inch 5K monitor with an integrated 12 megapixel camera, six-speaker sound system with spatial audio and Dolby Atmos support and a height adjustable stand. Customers reported months-long shipping delays for the Mac Studio, attributed to a global chip shortage.

Updates

On June 5, 2023, during WWDC, Apple introduced updated Mac Studio models based on the M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips. Updates include Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6E, the capability of running up to six 6K monitors, and support for 8K displays over Thunderbolt and HDMI.

On March 5, 2025, updated Mac Studio models were announced with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips, which began shipping on March 12. Updates include support for AV1 decoding, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Thunderbolt 5, with memory configurable up to 512 GB and storage configurable up to 16 TB on the M3 Ultra models. Despite the M4 chips being a newer generation than the M3 chips, the M3 Ultra was included in the high-end model due to there being no existing Ultra chips in the M4 line. On March 4, 2026, Apple quietly removed the option to configure the Mac Studio's memory to 512 GB, likely due to the ongoing global memory supply shortage.

Repairability

Mac Studio has two removable flash storage ports, with one or two of them in use, the latter in models with 4 or 8 TB of storage. While it is possible to swap the flash storage card between same size models, with an Apple Configurator restore, upgrading is not supported officially. Some reviewers have criticized this decision as unfriendly for right to repair, while Ars Technica notes this limitation may be due to the design of Apple silicon that implements the SSD controller into the system on a chip rather than the drive itself for encryption purposes. The positioning of components such as the SSD beneath an exposed power supply has also been criticized.

Reception

Specifications

Software and operating systems

The macOS operating system has been pre-installed on all Mac Studio computers since release, starting with version macOS Monterey, which is the first release of macOS to ship with the original Mac Studio.

Notes

External links