I was able to export an 8K version of that 34-second video in 23 seconds on both Mac Studios (the M1 Max model took 0.2 seconds longer). So I relied on a few Apple-provided projects to get a better sense of the Mac Studio's real-world performance: an 8K video edit in Final Cut Pro, and a 54-million voxel CT scan in Horos Mobile. I'm not a professional video editor, and I don't work with complex 3D models regularly. Intel's 14- and 16-core 12th-gen chips scored slightly higher than the M1 Max in multithreaded performance, but the M1 Ultra trounced them completely. The M1 Max model, meanwhile, scored the same as the Max-powered 16-inch MacBook Pro, and well above other 10-core systems.

The M1 Ultra-powered Mac Studio achieved the highest Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 multithreaded scores we've ever seen, all without spinning up its fan or working up a sweat. And, for the most part, that's what I found during my testing.

The big takeaway: You can expect the Mac Studio to deliver a lot of performance without generating much heat or fan noise. Intel NUC 12 Extreme (Intel Core i9-12900, NVIDIA RTX 3080) The M1 Ultra can be equipped with up to 128GB of unified RAM with 800 GB/s of memory bandwidth (again, double what's possible on the M1 Max). That means you can just double all of those stats: It has a 20-core CPU, 48-core GPU and a 32-core Neural Engine. In all practical respects, the M1 Ultra is basically two M1 Max chips joined together with Apple's 'UltraFusion' die-to-die interconnect. (I can say with certainty there's never been this much RAM on my desk at once.) The M1 Max is pretty much the same chip that was featured on the new MacBook Pro: It has 10 CPU cores (8 8 performance cores, 2 for efficiency), a 24-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine for AI processing. (I know several video editors who'll be particularly peeved by this.)Īpple sent along two Mac Studio models for testing: one with an M1 Max chip and 64GB of RAM, and another with the M1 Ultra chip and 128GB of RAM. My only quibble is the rear headphone jack/line out connection: It's fine if you're using speakers, but it's annoying for people who constantly need to plug and unplug their headphones, especially since it's right beside the power button.

2017 mac mini or nuc