And seriously, one machine is wild. It’s crazy that I have everything in my backpack. That’s sad if I lose my backpack, I’d have to download 8 TB from the cloud haha
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16" M3 Max 128gb vs Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128gb?
- Thread starter RyanFlynn
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I am late to reply this since I only saw it just now;
Yes there are real world testings, both mine and from the internet.
When the Ultra has been known to not scale well over the Max, especially the M1 gen. I have tried both the base M1 Ultra and M1 Max Mac Studios, ended up keeping the M1 Max instead as I felt the extra cost does not match the marginal performance increase in what I usually do. There are tasks that actually do scale well such as multi-thread CPU heavy tasks like heavy large format batch photo processing in Lightroom which saw an almost 2.0x speed increase with the Ultra vs the Max, but most other software do not run like that.
The M2 Ultra has reportedly improved upon scaling but it got too short of a lifespan before M3 Max announcement. And then the gen-by-gen base architecture improvements means the M2 Max comes closer to the M1 Ultra, and M3 Max comes even closer to the M2 Ultra let alone M1 Ultra. In my previous comment you quoted I was trying to illustrate this "problem", Apple's release cycles dictates the useful shelf-life of an Ultra chip shorter than it should have been, further decreasing the value in choosing it over the Max.
I do agree with your comment that all user should be basing decisions on actual personal workloads instead of listening to anecdotal remarks on the internet though. The Ultra may work for some but very seldom for the others, I found. And then the generational, horizontal upgrades also seldom works for most, if we say going from like M2 Pro to M3 Pro for instance. But this time Apple has put a lot of emphasis in the M3 Max. I myself have bought a base 16" M3 Max along side my M1 Max Studio, and can see the laptop meaningfully faster in the task I do. If Apple released the M3 Max Mac Studio at the same time I may have bought that instead.
Do you have displays connected to that dock? I currently use a caldigit TS4 and element to connect up an HDMI monitor and my Apple studio display to the MBP. I wish it had 10Gb though…wondering if the OWC might be a better fit then if it will work with the displays?
Not him but I got both the OWC and its predecessor (the Akitio OEM Dock Pro).
Does your monitor have DisplayPort input? The OWC dock only has DP but no HDMI, you’d need another adaptor for that. (actually, isn’t the TS4 the same on this?)
Otherwise it is a nice dock, with less common ports than your TS4 but some really exclusive ports like the 10GbE you want, or the CFexpress slot etc. But if all you want is 10GbE why don’t you just add a TB3 NIC? I have a couple CalDigit 10G Connect in our studio, they are rock solid, the bulk really helps to dissipate the heat of the 10G NIC. In the Akitio original dock pro there was a fan but on the OWC version they switched to fanless. Not that it gave me any problems though.
Thanks! Yes, I currently use an HDMI to DisplayPort adapter with my TS4. My monitor does have DP, but I have that going to a windows desktop that needs DP for GSYNC. So I use one HDMI out to my Mac Studio and the other to the adapter and then into the TS4.
You make a good point on just adding a 10GB TB3 instead...maybe that's the simplest and cheapest route here and I could chain that to my existing TS4.
I'm seeing rumors of the M3 ultra studio refresh at WWDC later this year, but consolidating to a single mobile setup would be nice, so I'm leaning towards that option especially given the performance comparisons here
Yeah, in premiere it's about the same, but in logic, it absolutely crushes my m1 ultra. Easy switch.
Nice, that's one of my two uses - logic and Camtasia renders. I'm guessing logic will see more of an improvement, but that’s good to hear. That alone helps me justify the upgrade
Real talk, I’m struggling to sell the m1 ultra studio with 128gb and 8tb for more than $3k. I would not have r made the switch if I had known about the depreciation.
From a really old study:
"Not surprisingly, our empirical results indicate that PCs lose value at a rapid pace. Over our full sample period, the value of a PC declines roughly 50 percent, on average, with each year of use, implying that a newly-installed PC can be expected to be nearly worthless after five or six years of service."
In apple world its not as bad. At least in the EU.
More about 50% every 2 years.
and the higher specked lose a bit more.
My last purchases were a 4y old 15“ for 25% of resale value. And a 2y old 16“ M1 Pro for 55% rsv.
Same goes for iphones