The Mac Studio now comes with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity

Apple’s compact desktop for power users and demanding professionals finally gets it long-awaited update.

The Mac Studio now comes with the M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips. The M4 Max made its debut in the MacBook Pro last year and can be had with up to 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores. That hasn’t changed for the Mac Studio.

Users who need even more performance can opt for the M3 Ultra. The M3 UItra uses Apple’s UltraFusion interconnect technology to fuse two M3 Max chips together to give a grand total of 32 CPU cores and a whopping 80 GPU cores. Apple says it’s the most powerful chip in a Mac.

Cores are just one part of the equation. To ensure users can maximise all of them, the M3 Ultra starts with 96GB of memory and can be upgraded to a whopping 512GB. This allows users to load large and complex graphics files and also LLMs for AI workloads.

Connectivity has been improved with the added support of Thunderbolt 5. These ports enable data transfer rates of up to 120Gbps with compatible devices. Mac Studios with the M4 Max chips will have four Thunderbolt 5 ports, whereas those with the M3 Ultra will come with six Thunderbolt 5 ports.

It has taken nearly two years, but the Mac Studio finally gets the update it deserves. The improvements in performance look like they could be significant and it's nice to see support for the latest Thunderbolt 5 standard. I think owners of last-generation Mac Studio will be tempted to upgrade and are probably taking a long hard look at their machines right now.

Availability and pricing

The Mac Studio is available now with prices starting at S$2,899. You can find it on Lazada and the Apple Online Store.

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