Is it worth Apple Mac Studio M2 Max in 2024?

[Kronsteen]

I said that only on the basis of various reviews. But as you indicate, if a user is pushing the core work, then an Ultra M2 would outperform an M3 Max pro. Besides the Ray Tracing issues which might effect some.

Also, the Powerbook is also subject to heat dissipation far more than a Studio. Due to that factor, IMO a MacBook Pro with less cores seems better value to me - because if one is really pushing a MacBook, including the better cooled 16", tests show it will throttle back under heavy loads. So why have the full core model when its likely to throttle back under full duress? However the less core MacBook Pro's RAM is limited to 96 GB. But overall I reckon a 96 GB lesser MacBook Pro with a 2 TB drive seems a better investment than a full blown MacBook Pro.

It all depends on what how one uses it I guess. I presume with the m4 MacBook Pros coming shortly, Apple may not provide a Max version of them until they upgrade the Studio, because an M4 Pro Max would likely be faster all the time than an Ultra.

Another thing is the value side. With a MacBook, one gets a keyboard as well, & a monitor too. Plus a battery which provides some fault tolerance and protection from power surges. The cost accountants would have forbid Apple putting in a battery to make a Studio surge proof and more fault tolerant.

For myself, I wanted Apple to have a PCI option in an affordable desktop. I am also outraged by Apple's lack of upgradability with their internal drives.

Apple used to be the hardware king IMO. Now its a mix of software/icloud revenues, phones and pads, and notebooks, with little interest in its desktops IMO, unless one includes an Apple TV as a desktop, because I think Apple take that device very seriously. IMO if Apple lowered the price on their Studios as they got older, they'd be taking that sector far more seriously. But they don't behave like that which indicates to me they are not customer focused, and they seem to me to take the historic desktop brigade for granted, and treat them with what looks to me like some contempt.

Thank you for taking the time to make such a comprehensive reply.

I fear you’re right about desktops. TB5 would be something, I suppose, but I’m not holding my breath. A discrete GPU alongside an Mx Ultra would be nice, too (I also believe in Father Christmas). I have fond memories of the 2008 dual-CPU Mac Pro ….

 

[Melbourne Park]

Thank you for taking the time to make such a comprehensive reply.

I fear you’re right about desktops. TB5 would be something, I suppose, but I’m not holding my breath. A discrete GPU alongside an Mx Ultra would be nice, too (I also believe in Father Christmas). I have fond memories of the 2008 dual-CPU Mac Pro ….

I realise that a discrete GPU is gone from Apple. Apple had fights with NVidia, and eventually tossed them all away and did it themselves, and a lot better than Intel have done. While doing so hurts long term upgradability, Apple now doesn't want their customers to cheaply upgrade, they just want us to buy a new device.

But T-5 would at least allow us to remove some of the work off the computer ... and SSDs do have defined lives, and the smaller the SSD, the sooner they will fail.

With the m4 Studio now next year sometime, it must have T-5. Otherwise Apple - a leader in Thunderbolt implementation - would show itself to be a complete bad joke.

 

[MrSLML]

I'm in a similar situation. I need a fast machine for rendering in Davinci Resolve or FCP and export to HD MP4.
New M4 Mac Studios will not comming this year, right?
So my question is, will a new M4 (or M4 Pro) MacMini beat a M1 Max or M2 Max Mac Studio for my desired task?

 

[Kronsteen]

I'm in a similar situation. I need a fast machine for rendering in Davinci Resolve or FCP and export to HD MP4.
New M4 Mac Studios will not comming this year, right?
So my question is, will a new M4 (or M4 Pro) MacMini beat a M1 Max or M2 Max Mac Studio for my desired task?

Good question. I have been wasting time looking at benchmark numbers pondering GPU performance, with a view to ultimately replacing an old 2014 Mac Pro. I made a post about this, illustrated with some benchmark numbers, here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ation-megathread-merged.2393843/post-33465901

My expectation had been that GPU performance of the M4 would be relatively modest and, in terms of core count, I still suspect that that may be so. However, having looked at bit more closely at GeekBench numbers (big caveat: should only be taken as a very rough guide), for both the newest iPad Pro and also the supposed M4 MacBook Pro, it does look like the M4 GPU could have a 15-20% gain — so long as the comparisons are of equal numbers of cores.

Here are a few PugetBench for Davinci Resolve numbers:

M3 Max 10169
M3 Pro 6459
M2 Pro 5780

(I’ve also seen an M2 Ultra number, but it looks a bit anomalous.)

Let’s assume that an M2 Max would therefore achieve in the region of 9000 in this benchmark. So if an M4 Pro has a 15% gain on an M3 Pro, that suggests something approaching 7500. In other words, conceivably within 20% or so of an M2 Max.

NB. that this is all very speculative. *Please* do not take these numbers as any sort of accurate prediction. They aren’t. It’s simply to give a very rough idea.

For me, though, thermal performance is also a factor, so I would not consider a Mini. I don’t know if that matters to you. In the end, although I could be tempted by an M2 Ultra (particularly if discounted, or refurbished), I will probably sit tight for a year or more and end up deciding between an M4 (or 5) Ultra in a Studio or a LINUX machine with a bigger NVIDIA GPU.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I'm in a similar situation. I need a fast machine for rendering in Davinci Resolve or FCP and export to HD MP4.
New M4 Mac Studios will not comming this year, right?
So my question is, will a new M4 (or M4 Pro) MacMini beat a M1 Max or M2 Max Mac Studio for my desired task?

Interesting question. For general video timeline editing, I would expect the M4 or M4 Pro to perform pretty well given they will have stronger CPU performance than the M1 & M2 Max. For rendering, assuming this is done exclusively on the GPU cores, then I would expect an M4 Pro (with 18 or 20 GPU cores) to be about as strong as the 32-core M1 Max - e.g. having a GB6 Metal benchmark score of 110-120,000.

I expect the M4 Pro to have the single video encoder engine though, so depending on your projects (single or multiple video tracks) and codecs (H.264/265 or ProRes) you may still find the Max machines quite a lot faster. That said, it depends how often you render an entire project. I may only do it once a day, so going from 5 minutes to 10 minutes isn’t a huge deal. If your render times are a significant part of your work, then you will probably have a different opinion!

 

[Melbourne Park]

An on line report about a 14" MacPro M4 (evidently 200 were stolen from Apple and some have been purchased) showed the GPU core performance was 17% better than the M3's cores, which the same review said was only 2% per core better than the M2's GPU core performance.

The Macbook also had an extra Thunderbolt port (I presume its all T-4). It looks like the M4s will be a big leap in GPU performance. Also the CPUs were running faster than the iPad Pro's M4- which evidently have been slowed down. The power consumption for the M4 looks a lot better too ... although for those wanted an macbook Pro to crunch video etc., the battery is really a limitation not a benefit.

It does make me wonder how a warehouse in Russia can be offering 200 M4 Macbooks for sale ... I wonder what the Ukrainians now feel about Apple ??

 

[Fomalhaut]

An on line report about a 14" MacPro M4 (evidently 200 were stolen from Apple and some have been purchased) showed the GPU core performance was 17% better than the M3's cores, which the same review said was only 2% per core better than the M2's GPU core performance.

The Macbook also had an extra Thunderbolt port (I presume its all T-4). It looks like the M4s will be a big leap in GPU performance. Also the CPUs were running faster than the iPad Pro's M4- which evidently have been slowed down. The power consumption for the M4 looks a lot better too ... although for those wanted an macbook Pro to crunch video etc., the battery is really a limitation not a benefit.

It does make me wonder how a warehouse in Russia can be offering 200 M4 Macbooks for sale ... I wonder what the Ukrainians now feel about Apple ??

If true, the leaked M4 looks like a substantial performance upgrade. I’m more curious about the M4 Pro and Max improvements.

As for the stolen laptops ending up in Russia, I imagine they came via China, and possibly some 3rd country such as Georgia or Kazakhstan, which is how sanctions are frequently bypassed by Russia. If I were Ukrainian, I would be more concerned about military technology bypassing sanctions than a few Macbooks.

 

[Melbourne Park]

yes, countries sympathetic to Russia (or is that controlled) have had exports to Russia increased by many times, and also, imports from China increased many times, since Russia invaded. What was it that Marx said? The capitalists will sell the rope to hang themselves. I never believed much of what Marx said, especially that, but now ...

 

[Melbourne Park]

If true, the leaked M4 looks like a substantial performance upgrade. I’m more curious about the M4 Pro and Max improvements.

It sounds to me like they'll will have a huge jump over the M3, so very big over the M2. We'll know a lot more very soon, but no mentions of whether M4 Pro chips will also ship. Somehow I doubt it, but who knows ...

Evidently the multi-core 10 core base M4 processor in multi core got the same performance as the 12 core M3 Pro chip in multi-core. The base M4 also has only 4 performance cores compared to the M3 Pro's 6 cores.

The GPU per core was a big step up from M3 per GPU core - 17%. The M3 increase from M2 per core was only 2% per core increase. If the new Ultra has lots more cores than the M2 Ultra, it could be a very big jump.

But middle of next year is a long time to wait for many ...

 

[wojtek.traczyk]

@Ramoncitos @MrSLML

Guys, if you’re planning to use your future machine to serious video production, I’d suggest to pay attention not only at cpu/gpu benchmarks/achievements. These are considerable of course, but there are another factors as well.

Any Mac’s video capabilities are also based on 1. amount of video hardware encoders/decoders, 2. system bandwidth, 3. RAM amount, 4. thermal design (ability to dissipate heat during continuous hours, quite usual in given, nomen omen, scenario).

Up to the point, Studio/Pro is beating MBP in all these factors mentioned.

I do not mean that won’t change with upcoming M4 iterations such Minis or MBPs, but definitely these factors are things to consider, if you’re planning burn your midnight oil rendering videos/motion design with it, for example.

 

[fathergll]

Best bet is get used/refurbished M2 Mac Studio in 2024 and resell in late 2025/early 2026 for refurbished M4 Mac Studio.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Except that many tests show for instance, the difference between a Macbook Pro M3 and the M3 Max, can be insignificant for many video works and apps. Yet the Max has wider data path, more cores and in M3 should be much faster than the M3 Pro. Per core performance diminishes with the number of cores, bandwidth utilisation has various bottlenecks, the list goes on.

It comes down to bottleneck analysis - what does a user do that takes the most time? The valid way to find which machine does that best job, is to buy one from Apple, do your tests, and then return it. Then do the same with another proposed Mac. But doing so runs into the problem of too many variables. Should one buy a Mac with 48, 64, 96 or 128 GB of RAM? Or 1TB, 2 TB etc of disc capacity. To be sure with Apple one has to make up one's mind at purchase time, and Apple's prices for upgrading disc and Ram are 4 times the cost of it hardware cost. So one paces a large premium for ensuring one's capacities will not run out in a long run of work.

Which of these is the better value in Apple Refurbs:

Limited Disc size:

$1,529.00 0.5TB/ 32 GB RAM
Refurbished Mac Studio Apple M1 Max Chip with 10‑Core CPU and 24‑Core GPU

$3,059.00 1TB/64GB RAM
Refurbished Mac Studio Apple M1 Ultra Chip with 20‑Core CPU and 48‑Core GPU


2TB Disc Size:

$1,869.00 2 TB/24 GB RAM
Refurbished 13-inch MacBook Air Apple M2 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 10‑Core GPU

$2,969.00 2 TB/32 GB Ram
Refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple M2 Max Chip with 12‑Core CPU and 30‑Core GPU

$3,649.00 2TB/64 GB RAM
Refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple M3 Max Chip with 16‑Core CPU and 40‑Core GPU - Space Black

$4,319.00 2TB/64 GB RAM
Refurbished Mac Studio Apple M1 Ultra Chip with 20‑Core CPU and 64‑Core GPU

 

[Melbourne Park]

I didn't list the iMacs either. There are many with 2 TB drives. But they all seem to have 8 GB RAM!!

Look at these Studios:
$1,529.00 0.5TB/ 32 GB RAM M1 Max Chip with 10‑Core CPU and 24‑Core GPU
$3,059.00 1TB/64GB RAM M1 Ultra Chip with 20‑Core CPU and 48‑Core GPU
$4,319.00 2TB/64 GB RAM M1 Ultra Chip with 20‑Core CPU and 64‑Core GPU

The first Studio is a disposable - its drive will fail due (and they do fail) due to working too hard, and it will virtualise a lot due to the lack of RAM. But for many, buy an external T-3 drive and use that. OK value but IMO risky.
The second is OK IMO. Run it off an external, and its a lot cheaper than the 2 TB, which would last longer IMO. But run everything off an external TB drive and you save a lot of money.
The third one - would last a long time IMO, because when virtualising, its 2 TB would be doing a lot less work. Worth it over the 1 TB? For me, Thunderbolt 5 would allow a 1 TB drive. But until then I'd feel a lot safer with 2 TB. But many reckon their small ie hafl to 1 TB - drives will last for 30 years. That's not been my experience though.

 

[MrSLML]

Other question: What impact will the launch of the new M4 have on the prices of the current M2 Max Mac Studios? Can we expect a price reduction or will this only come with the M4 Max computers?

 

[Melbourne Park]

Other question: What impact will the launch of the new M4 have on the prices of the current M2 Max Mac Studios? Can we expect a price reduction or will this only come with the M4 Max computers?

Apple typically just stops selling them. They appear with 15% discounts in the refurb stores, but in only some options. Greater than 15% can happen, but it's rare IMO. The new models typically cost more than the older models.

 

[MrSLML]

Why should they stop stelling the Studio M2 Max before the Studio M4 Max is released? And they are probably not expected to appear until next year. So my question is, if the release of the other M4 devices in the next weeks affects the prices of the current Studio M2 Max?

 

[MacPoulet]

I interpreted Melbourne Park's comment as: once a new Studio is released, the previous one is removed from the market and is no longer produced (unlike an iPhone which moves down to a lower pricing tier). Whatever systems still in retail channels usually get discounted to liquidate. Melbourne Park, please correct me if I got that wrong.

I doubt that M4 Macs will have any effect on current Mac Studio pricing. I can't remember off the top of my head if it's ever happened for either the Studio or any Mac in the last 20 years. We'll probably see a situation where an M4 Pro Mac Mini will perform better than an M2 Max Mac Studio for less money, until a new studio comes out.