Mac Studio Dilemma

[mattmacpro]

I ordered a Mac Studio (Max, 64gb, 1tb) a month or so ago because the delivery date was November 2nd. I wanted to get an order in to hedge my bets against a possible October announcement either not happening or not having anything I was interested in. Even a week or so early would still be after the October announcement or at least within the return period.

I didn't order a monitor for it because, you know, theoretical October announcement of an XDR Studio display.

Well, guess what showed up today, more than two months early? Yep.

I do have a monitor I can use it with in the mean time at least since I definitely wouldn't buy a Studio Display now ... but I kind of wish it had taken longer to come in.

So the question is whether I keep it or if I should cancel and not pick it up at the store. I'm not expecting any changes to the Studio if there is something in October. I've talked myself out of the Ultra a half dozen times already, and I don't need more even if I kind of *want* more. But if there were a M2 Pro Mini, that would have a decent chance to lure me as an alternative. Opinions?

 

[lcubed]

put it to work. make some money using it.

reevaluate in october.

 

[Diskutant]

The MacStudio won't get an upgrade this soon.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I really wouldn't expect a Studio update until April at the earliest, and likely at WWDC in Juneish.

But if you don't want it, send it back.

 

[MajorFubar]

There won't be an update to the Mac Studio soon, it's barely five months old.
I totally get your dilemma about the 'Mini Pro'...the fact there is still an Intel Mac Mini priced higher than the M1 Mini teases us with the possibility that there will be an M2 Pro version launched at the same time they update the regular Mini to M2. I battled long and hard with my reservations about whether I should just hold-out for the 'Pro' Mini instead of investing in a Studio, but in the end I made the commitment like you have.

 

[Paul Cordingley]

I waited and waited for an M2 Mini ... and then caved in and bought the exact same model Studio you did. No regrets. With that extra performance and memory etc. you will be glad you bought it in the longer term. Life is too short, get the best you can when you can and revel in it

 

[theluggage]

But if there were a M2 Pro Mini, that would have a decent chance to lure me as an alternative. Opinions?

I think even the "professional analysts" are currently in "wild guess" mode, so who can tell?

My wild guess is that if "M2 Pro" and "M2 Max" chips do come out this year, they'll be exclusive to the 14/16" MacBook Pros - far more important products from Apple's POV - for some months.

Also, a "M2 Pro headless desktop" sounds, to me, more like a low-end Mac Studio than a high-end Mac Mini - since it could support the extra ports present on a Studio & probably benefit from the extra cooling (if it is going to run near-silent) - and I'd only expect that to happen if/when the whole Studio line gets bumped to M2 - for which you should probably not hold your breath.

Plus, M2 Pro might not support 64GB - the M1 Pro/Max already have the LPDDR5 & RAM bus updates that the regular M2 got over the M1.

...that's if the M2 series even follows the same Pro/Max/Ultra cadence as the M1.

A (regular) M2 Mac Mini in the existing Mac Mini case sounds a bit more likely - and while a lot of people like that, it probably won't have any better ports or display support than the regular M1, and your M1 Max Studio should still out-perform it.

Also, by all reports it sounds like 3nm isn't quite going to be in the shops for Christmas - so any M2 Pro/Max chips launched before then might be "stopgap" 5nm chips with 3nm versions likely next year. M2 might be the generation to skip over if you've already got a M1-series system.

 

[MisterK]

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a MacStudio,, but worry that n M2 one will come out before Christmas.

 

[lcubed]

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a MacStudio,, but worry that n M2 one will come out before Christmas.

so unlikely, i would expect an announcement for an updated studio until next february at the earliest (or 1 year after the initial mac studio announcement)

 

[mattmacpro]

My wild guess is that if "M2 Pro" and "M2 Max" chips do come out this year, they'll be exclusive to the 14/16" MacBook Pros - far more important products from Apple's POV - for some months.

Also, a "M2 Pro headless desktop" sounds, to me, more like a low-end Mac Studio than a high-end Mac Mini - since it could support the extra ports present on a Studio & probably benefit from the extra cooling...

A (regular) M2 Mac Mini in the existing Mac Mini case sounds a bit more likely - and while a lot of people like that, it probably won't have any better ports or display support than the regular M1, and your M1 Max Studio should still out-perform it.

Also, by all reports it sounds like 3nm isn't quite going to be in the shops for Christmas - so any M2 Pro/Max chips launched before then might be "stopgap" 5nm chips with 3nm versions likely next year. M2 might be the generation to skip over if you've already got a M1-series system.

Those are really good points, thank you! I'm going to pick it up Saturday in that case I think! Just one more day of convincing myself I don't need an Ultra and I'll be fine once it is on my desk.

 

[wilberforce]

Well, what might drop in October is Mac Pro (M2 Ultra/Extreme). As long as you aren't in the market for this, I think you have nothing to worry about.

 

[mattmacpro]

Well, what might drop in October is Mac Pro (M2 Ultra/Extreme). As long as you aren't in the market for this, I think you have nothing to worry about.

Judging from the current Mac Pro pricing, Mac Pro will not be in my price range. I COULD stretch to the refurb Studio Ultra base since that is only a $600 jump. But if they release a M2 Ultra, and being the Mac Pro, it is going to be easily out of my price range.

I have an 2020 imac i7 now and it is plenty for me. I only hear the fans a few times a week. So the Max should also be fine. The Ultra would be overkill the vast majority of the time, without even needing to look at whatever step the Mac Pro will be. I want to move to separate the monitor from the computer and make the Apple Silicone transition while I can still get decent money for my imac.

 

[theluggage]

But if they release a M2 Ultra, and being the Mac Pro, it is going to be easily out of my price range.

If a M2 Ultra appears (that's assuming that the Pro/Max/Ultra succession works in a similar way with M2 as with M1) then you'd expect a Mac Studio with M2 Ultra to appear in due course.

The Mac Pro may start with a M2 Ultra model, and maybe have a limited-time exclusive on it, but I think there will have to be a lot more to it than that in terms of expandability or scaleability, or it's just a speed-bumped Studio Ultra.

If you look at the 2019 Mac Pro, the base model has pretty low specs and would have it's clock cleaned by a top-end iMac: you don't buy a $6000 Mac Pro unless you're going to plug in another $6000 of internal expansion.

My wild guesses for the Mac Pro are either:

• Tower system with a few internal PCIe slots (more if there's a M2 Extreme) & maybe some sort of expandable RAM swap disc to make the limited unified RAM go further, or...
• Basically a Mac Studio (maybe with a M2 Extreme option) but in 1U rackmount form so you can 'cluster' several of them together with TB4 interconnects and/or rack-mounted TB-to-PCIe enclosures and storage modules, or...
• Something that looks a bit like the current 2019 Mac Pro, but instead of plugging GPUs into the MPX slots you plug in M2 Max/Ultra "compute modules"

The Ultra would be overkill the vast majority of the time

I get the impression that you need to research very carefully to see whether the software you use could ever make use of the extra CPU and GPU cores on an Ultra - or make use of the extra Unified RAM that it supports.

 

[eddie_ducking]

Something that looks a bit like the current 2019 Mac Pro, but instead of plugging GPUs into the MPX slots you plug in M2 Max/Ultra "compute modules"

4x M2 Ultras with 192core+ GPU and 768GB RAM ... now that sounds like a beast 😃

(and rather outside of my price range 🥲)

 

[bearcatrp]

4x M2 Ultras with 192core+ GPU and 768GB RAM ... now that sounds like a beast 😃

(and rather outside of my price range 🥲)

You would need to win the lottery to afford it if apple came out with this.

 

[handheldgames]

I thought the Mac Studio Max with 1TB and 64GB of ram would be ideal for my use. Needless to say I'm glad I purchased the retail ultra instead. This is a typical CPU/GPU utilization when I use the Mac Studio for live streaming (not games). Yes, my apps are optimized for arm64. Needless to say, I would have ended up returning the max..

 

[Pressure]

I thought the Mac Studio Max with 1TB and 64GB of ram would be ideal for my use. Needless to say I'm glad I purchased the retail ultra instead. This is a typical CPU/GPU utilization when I use the Mac Studio for live streaming (not games). Yes, my apps are optimized for arm64. Needless to say, I would have ended up returning the max..

There is nothing indicating that the load wouldn't run fine on the M1 Max or even the M1/M2 from what you posted.

 

[handheldgames]

There is nothing indicating that the load wouldn't run fine on the M1 Max or even the M1/M2 from what you posted.

Do the math. All CPU Performance cores on a max would be beyond 100% and I would be starved for GPU bandwidth. It may run, but I would not be able to maintain framerate.

Here is another run with the GPU pegged ~90% where I had additional high bitrate streams encoded / transmitted I was using for presentation chewing up CPU cycles. In neither case would the Max be able to handle my workflow. At this load, the MacStudio exhaust starts to get warm up as I maintain this for many hours a day.

 

[Feek]

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a MacStudio,, but worry that n M2 one will come out before Christmas.

Not a chance this will happen.

 

[Pressure]

Do the math. All CPU Performance cores on a max would be beyond 100% and I would be starved for GPU bandwidth. It may run, but I would not be able to maintain framerate.

Here is another run with the GPU pegged ~90% where I had additional high bitrate streams encoded / transmitted I was using for presentation chewing up CPU cycles. In neither case would the Max be able to handle my workflow. At this load, the MacStudio exhaust starts to get warm up as I maintain this for many hours a day.

I'm sorry but we are missing a lot of context here to "do the math".

What applications and why wouldn't it use the media engine for that?

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

For what it's worth, here is what MR currently says about the upcoming Mac Mini, which is projected for October:

Mac mini

When was the current model released? November 2020

What chip is in the current model? M1 chip

When to expect a new model? October 2022 likely

What chips to expect for new models? M2 chip

Major design changes for new model? Unlikely

Apple released the Mac mini with an M1 chip as one of its first three Apple silicon Macs in November 2020. Nearly two years later, a new version of the base model Mac mini with an M2 chip is rumored to be on the horizon.

When to Expect the Next MacBook Pro, iMac, and Other Macs to Launch

Apple's two-year transition from Intel processors to its own custom-designed chips in Macs is nearly complete. The only remaining Intel-based...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Pressure]

For what it's worth, here is what MR currently says about the upcoming Mac Mini, which is projected for October:

Mac mini

When was the current model released? November 2020

What chip is in the current model? M1 chip

When to expect a new model? October 2022 likely

What chips to expect for new models? M2 chip

Major design changes for new model? Unlikely

Apple released the Mac mini with an M1 chip as one of its first three Apple silicon Macs in November 2020. Nearly two years later, a new version of the base model Mac mini with an M2 chip is rumored to be on the horizon.

When to Expect the Next MacBook Pro, iMac, and Other Macs to Launch

Apple's two-year transition from Intel processors to its own custom-designed chips in Macs is nearly complete. The only remaining Intel-based...

www.macrumors.com

We are discussing the Mac Studio in this subforum 😅

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

We are discussing the Mac Studio in this subforum 😅

OP wrote:

"But if there were a M2 Pro Mini, that would have a decent chance to lure me as an alternative. "

and I'm giving them MR's projection for the M2 Pro Mini in order to help inform their decision.

 

[mattmacpro]

View attachment 2050799

As a total aside, what software are you using to generate these graphs? I have two weeks to see how the MAX is working for me, and I'd like to have this picture of the load on a second monitor as I use it.

Getting my Linux VM up is a little more hassle than it was on the iMac so far. And for the first couple of hours or so, stuff like ejecting disk images was oddly laggy. But that has cleared up. I have about half of my stuff moved over to it and set up and it isn't breaking a sweat so far. Part of me wants to go for the Ultra anyway, but with tax that is almost a $1400 step and there are a lot of different ways I could spend $1400 that would be better uses if I don't need the capacity.

 

[handheldgames]

I'm sorry but we are missing a lot of context here to "do the math".

What applications and why wouldn't it use the media engine for that?

Unfortunately, the cross platform Live video production apps I use do not leverage media engine's support for the ProRes pipeline and tasks leverage cpu+gpu acceleration. This includes OBS and a chromium browser based system called VDO.Ninja. Hence I would have been screwed with a Studio Max on GPU utilization alone.

Unlike most live streams where they use a cloud based platform system that results in what I consider sub-par video quality, I push the envelope with a peer to peer system that opens up the data pipes for my guests. The livestream feed is encoded at 7,000 KB/s and sent back to each guest(2-4 people) so they receive a high quality feed. I'm also sending 7,000 KB/s to youtube via RTMPS in OBS, for a ultra-low latency broadcast.

I'm also using a i444 color profile vs NV10 to provide a better representation of colors. Unfortunately, this is not an accelerated pipeline so I pay the price for better color quality in CPU overhead.

I need to maintain sub 10ms rendering times to maintain 60FPS. Hence, working with a system that's resource constrained would prevent me from hitting that mark. Memory utilization usually sits around 40GB of ram, with no memory pressure leaving some breathing room before having to leverage VM. Where I like it.