Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) review: The dream machine

Note: This article was first published on 8 May 2025.

For many, the Mac Studio is the dream Mac desktop system. It’s powerful, has good connectivity, and, for a professional-grade workstation, it's incredibly compact. The last update came in 2022, so Apple decided to give it a spec update earlier this year. It’s physically identical to the model it replaces, but it has improved internals and upgraded connectivity. Let’s jump into what’s new and see if it's worth getting one.

The TL;DR version:

The Mac Studio remains the dream system for professionals and power users who want the pinnacle Mac computing experience. It's expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Note: You can find the Mac Studio on Lazada and the Apple Online Store.

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) review: Faster and more of everything

The big update is obviously the chips that power the Mac Studio. The last-generation Mac Studio came with the M2 Max and M2 Ultra. For this generation, the Mac Studio now comes with the M4 Max and M3 Ultra.

The M4 Max is not new. The M4 made its debut in the iPad Pro in May last year, and the M4 Max in last year’s MacBook Pro. It’s essentially an M4 chip on steroids.  The M4 Max is built on a second-generation 3nm process and comes in two variants. In its most powerful form, it has 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores. It can be equipped with up to 128GB of memory.

The M3 Ultra, on the other hand, is brand new. As you might surmised from its name, it consists of two M3 Max chips fused together using Apple’s high-speed UltraFusion interconnect. Like the M4 Max, there are two variants of the M3 Ultra. If you deck it out, you get a whopping 32 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores. And you can pair it with up to 512GB of memory. Though it’s built on an older 3nm process, it’s the most powerful chip Apple has ever made (at least in multi-core workloads, more on this later).

The other notable update is that the USB-C ports on the new Mac Studio support Thunderbolt 5. This new standard delivers up to 80Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth, which is double Thunderbolt 3 and 4. There’s also a boost mode where it can get up to 120Gbps in a single direction. This can be handy for bandwidth-intensive, high-resolution video use.

One thing to note is that the M4 Max model will come with four Thunderbolt 5 ports, i.e. all of its rear USB-C ports. The front ports are still USB 3.1 Gen 1. As for the M3 Ultra, all six of its USB-C ports—front and rear—will support Thunderbolt 5. If you need lots of Thunderbolt 5 ports, the choice is clear.

Lovers of high-resolution multi-monitor setups can pop the bubbly because support for external displays has been improved for the M3 Ultra model. It still supports a maximum of eight external displays (same as the last-gen M2 Ultra) but at up to 6K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 144Hz. The M2 Ultra Mac Studio could “only” do eight displays at up to 4K resolution at 60Hz. If you use 8K displays, the M3 Ultra model can handle up to four of them simultaneously at 60Hz—that’s one more than its predecessor.

How fast is the M3 Ultra?

Our review unit came with a full-fat M3 Ultra with 32 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores. It also has 256GB of memory and 4TB of storage. This configuration costs an eye-watering S$11,949.

Unsurprisingly, the Mac Studio with a fully decked out M3 Ultra is fast with a capital “F”. But because the M3 Ultra is built using a slightly older process, it is outpaced by the M4 Max in single-core performance. However, since it has more CPU cores, it storms back in workloads where it can utilise all of its cores. It’s markedly quicker than the M2 Ultra, too. Ultimately, the M3 Ultra shines brightest when doing work that can use all of its CPU cores.

Graphics performance was equally impressive. It recorded some of the highest scores we’ve ever seen on our graphics benchmark. However, gaming performance was only average. Even 80 GPU cores can only do so much if your games are not properly optimised to take advantage of the hardware.

What’s just as impressive as its performance is how quiet it is. It has fans, but you won’t know because you hardly ever hear them. Even under heavy loads, you have to strain your ears to hear the fans whirring.

Note: Click here to see the detailed performance analysis and charts.

Final thoughts & buying advice

The Mac Studio remains the dream Mac desktop for most people. It’s powerful, compact, and has just about all the connectivity one would need. If money is no object, it is the Mac to have.

But if you are a more rational reader, then the question to ask is if you need and can take advantage of all of its performance and features.

If you are coming from an older Mac with a M1-generation chip or even an Intel chip, then this new generation of Mac Studio is a no brainer. The M4 Max and M3 Ultra offer enough to entice these users to upgrade.

Things are trickier for owners of a last-generation Mac Studio. Stepping up from the M2 Max to a M4 Max or M3 Ultra will net decent performance gains and is arguably a worthwhile move; but the M2 Ultra remains a very fast chip with good external display support and connectivity.

Furthermore, the new Mac Studio retains the most glaring shortcoming of previous-generation Mac Studios: it cannot be upgraded. For professionals, this can be worrisome because there’s no way to extend the lifespan of the machine should it become inadequate one day. Storage can be expanded with external drives, but there’s no way to increase memory. You need to be very thoughtful of the specs when you place your order.

I think the most compelling feature of the M3 Ultra for professionals is the ability to spec it with up to 512GB of memory. This might be something you need if you deal with large and complex files and projects, or do work with AI and want to run LLMs (large language models) locally.

The truth is that for most people, a Mac mini is more than enough. The current-generation Mac mini has more than enough computing grunt for most users, has good connectivity, and is extremely compact. The only things I’d miss are the front-facing SD card reader and the USB-A ports, which are problems that can be easily solved by a USB-C or Thunderbolt hub.

Incredibly, the starting price of the Mac Studio is slightly lower. It now starts at S$2,899 (it used to be S$2,999). For that, you get a decently spec’ed unit with the M4 Max chip, 36GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. But like most other Apple products, prices climb quickly once you start spec’ing it up. If you max out all the options, a Mac Studio with a full-fat M3 Ultra chip, 512GB of memory, and 16TB SSD is a whopping S$20,949.

I’ve said it numerous times before, performance doesn’t come cheap at Apple, especially when it comes to their prosumer devices.

Buy the Mac Studio here: Lazada / Apple Online Store

Buy the Mac mini here: Lazada / Shopee / Apple Online Store

Apple Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): Performance analysis

To recap, the Mac Studio I'm testing comes with an M3 Ultra chip with 32 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores. It also has 256GB of memory and a 4TB SSD. It costs S$11,949.

Since the M3 Ultra is built on a slightly older 3nm process, it's single-core performance isn't as good as the M4 Max. In single-core workloads, the M4 Max chip is anywhere between 15% and 25% faster. However, the M3 Ultra’s single-core performance was around 15% faster than the M2 Ultra's.

However, because the M3 Ultra has more CPU cores, it surpasses the M4 Max in multi-core workloads. On Cinebench, the M3 Ultra’s multi-core score was 80% higher than the M4 Max’s. It was also a whopping 58% better than the M2 Ultra.

And in our video transcoding test, the M3 Ultra was nearly 40% faster than the M4 Max and 34% faster than the M2 Ultra at processing an hour-long Full-HD video.

The M3 Ultra’s graphics performance was the best among all Macs. In Geekbench’s Compute workload, it was around 30% faster than the M4 Max and around 18% faster than the M2 Ultra. On Cinebench’s GPU workload, it scored 37% higher than the M4 Max and 112% higher than the M2 Ultra.

Sadly, the M3 Ultra’s performance advantage doesn’t translate to meaningful performance improvements in games. On Tomb Raider, it managed roughly the same frame rates as the M2 Ultra. And on the newer Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, it recorded identical frame rates as the M4 Max. That said, most games on Mac aren’t well optimised, so this shouldn’t be surprising. What’s more telling about these results is that even an M3 Ultra chip won’t magically turn the Mac Studio into a bona fide gaming machine.

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