The base model Mac Studio is great value.

[bobcomer]

More than certain the M1 Max Studio will exceed what I'm using now by a few light years. Those two Thunderbolt 3 ports in the front certainly won't sit idle very long.
View attachment 1975810

With the Max, they're only USB4 (USBc) ports. The ones in the back are thunderbolt though. Only the Ultra has TB in the front.

 

[George Dawes]

I hope the base Studio (Max) will be a good deal for me as I have been very happy with the M1 Mini (base).
No complaints with my M1 Mini as I came from a noisey & hot 2012 i7 Mini Server.

Originally, I wanted just the Studio Display to replace my aging 27" TB display.

Now, I want BOTH !

In order to use both Studio display and TB display as a dual display setup, I am trading in my M1 Mini.

Picking up both today at Apple store!

Can’t wait for your detailed review 👍🏻

 

[ctjack]

Base Mac studio is $1300 cheaper than similarly specced MBP 16, which makes me wondering if the screen difference, portability make-up that difference. Probably great value if one was thinking about 14/16 in terms of performance.

 

[appletvbob]

With the Max, they're only USB4 (USBc) ports. The ones in the back are thunderbolt though. Only the Ultra has TB in the front.

I stand corrected... misread what Apple said in their press release: "Mac Studio includes ports on the front for more convenient access. There are two USB-C ports, which on M1 Max supports 10Gb/s USB 3, and on M1 Ultra supports 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4." (USB 3 is not Thunderbolt 3 oops)

For my use cases quick connecting to the 10Gb USB C ports will still be great. I have a cheap hub I will either ditch or repurpose.

 

[bobcomer]

I stand corrected... misread what Apple said in their press release: "Mac Studio includes ports on the front for more convenient access. There are two USB-C ports, which on M1 Max supports 10Gb/s USB 3, and on M1 Ultra supports 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 4." (USB 3 is not Thunderbolt 3 oops)

For my use cases quick connecting to the 10Gb USB C ports will still be great. I have a cheap hub I will either ditch or repurpose.

I really don't see much disadvantage to having 2 fewer thunderbolt ports as long as they are USB4. I have more USB devices than TB anyway. For the ultra I can seeing using TB for a bunch of disk space maybe. I already have a USBc SSD ready for it and speed for it isn't critical.

I don't have 10Gb ethernet. But I'll be using a couple of thunderbolt ports in the back and the USBa ports for my KVM, and the HDMI. We have plenty of ports. I feel so much more room than my M1 MBA.

 

[gtg465x]

Base Mac studio is $1300 cheaper than similarly specced MBP 16, which makes me wondering if the screen difference, portability make-up that difference. Probably great value if one was thinking about 14/16 in terms of performance.

Yeah, if you want an M1 Max, the Studio is a great deal. However, if you only care about CPU performance and not GPU, then the M1 Pro will get you the exact same CPU performance as the M1 Max, and a 14" MacBook Pro with M1 Pro will only run you $600 more than a Mac Studio with the same amount of memory and storage. I feel like the extra $600 would be worth it in that case to be able to have portability and an extra screen.

 

[januarydrive7]

Yeah, if you want an M1 Max, the Studio is a great deal. However, if you only care about CPU performance and not GPU, then the M1 Pro will get you the exact same CPU performance as the M1 Max, and a 14" MacBook Pro with M1 Pro will only run you $600 more than a Mac Studio with the same amount of memory and storage. I feel like the extra $600 would be worth it in that case to be able to have portability and an extra screen.

M1 Pro will get you the exact same single threaded CPU performance. Those going for Max/Ultra are either doing it for better multithreaded CPU performance or GPU performance (or both, but Apple's design doesn't allow you to pick and choose).

 

[LFO8]

So it appears that you would be able to fit in your own aftermarket SSD:

 

[AAPLGeek]

So it appears that you would be able to fit in your own aftermarket SSD:

Nope, its a proprietary port and only meant for Apple approved SSD modules like they sell for the Mac Pro 2019.

 

[LFO8]

Nope, its a proprietary port and only meant for Apple approved SSD modules like they sell for the Mac Pro 2019.

I’m sure OWC will come with an offering.

 

[ct2k7]

I’m sure OWC will come with an offering.

Like with the Mac Pro?

 

[LFO8]

Like with the Mac Pro?

They havent for the Mac Pro? I guess we'll all still pay Apple Tax on storage after all then.

 

[ct2k7]

They havent for the Mac Pro? I guess we'll all still pay Apple Tax on storage after all then.

Right - OWC only offer PCIe cards with storage

 

[gtg465x]

M1 Pro will get you the exact same single threaded CPU performance. Those going for Max/Ultra are either doing it for better multithreaded CPU performance or GPU performance (or both, but Apple's design doesn't allow you to pick and choose).

No, the 10-core M1 Pro gets you the same multithreaded CPU performance as the M1 Max. https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks/

Multi-Core

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) Apple M1 Max @ 3.2 GHz (10 cores) - 12230
MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) Apple M1 Pro @ 3.2 GHz (10 cores) - 12134

 

[roland.g]

That's not the only intel desktop people can buy.

Delete.

 

[jetjaguar]

Ive been tempted to buy the base max but the 512gb kills it for me,

 

[dizmonk]

Ive been tempted to buy the base max but the 512gb kills it for me,

Don't do it... Terrible idea by Apple... even worse idea by someone who buys it... They should have at least had a 1TB config available in the stores.

 

[gtg465x]

Don't do it... Terrible idea by Apple... even worse idea by someone who buys it... They should have at least had a 1TB config available in the stores.

I don’t know about 512 GB being a terrible idea. I’m a software engineer and my Mac has a bunch of large development apps, Microsoft Office, a few large games, my music collection, all of my photos and documents, Windows 10 Pro on a separate partition, and I’m still only using 352 GB of my 1 TB drive. I could have easily gotten away with 512 GB. Plus, you can always add external storage later.

 

[ctjack]

I’m still only using 352 GB of my 1 TB drive. I could have easily gotten away with 512 GB. Plus, you can always add external storage later.

Yes, but you are already hitting the ceiling: 352 used/ 494 total = 72% of the space used. SSDs hate being full which results in lags(those who lived with free 1-5GB on 128GB Macs know how is that), reduced r/w speeds and overall rewrite cycles of the leftover 28% will go bad faster when compared to if you had 1 TB.

 

[F-Train]

Yes, but you are already hitting the ceiling: 352 used/ 494 total = 72% of the space used. SSDs hate being full which results in lags(those who lived with free 1-5GB on 128GB Macs know how is that), reduced r/w speeds and overall rewrite cycles of the leftover 28% will go bad faster when compared to if you had 1 TB.

I've set up my Mac Studio Max, 500GB storage, with the result below (20GB is "System Data"). I use my internal drive as a workspace, and have all data on external solid state drives. In the screen capture, the 6TB and 10TB drives are ordinary hard drives for Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner. Applications additional to those which came with the OS install include Capture One, Photo Mechanic, Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, Logic Pro, DaVinci Resolve Studio, iZotope RX, iZotope Ozone, Kontakt, Steam, Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Pages, Numbers, Keynote and sample library player/management apps for Native Instruments, Spitfire Audio, Orchestral Tools and UVI.

 

[dizmonk]

I've set up my Mac Studio Max, 500GB storage, with the result below (20GB is "System Data"). I use my internal drive as a workspace, and have all data on external solid state drives. In the screen capture, the 6TB and 10TB drives are ordinary hard drives for Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner. Applications additional to those which came with the OS install include Capture One, Photo Mechanic, Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, Logic Pro, DaVinci Resolve Studio, iZotope RX, iZotope Ozone, Kontakt, Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Pages, Numbers, Keynote and sample library player/management apps for Native Instruments, Spitfire Audio, Orchestral Tools and UVI.

View attachment 1978826

Interesting setup but I'm confused... So say.. where is your Itunes library located? External drive? If that's the case, then how do you back up the external drive?

 

[illitrate23]

Interesting setup but I'm confused... So say.. where is your Itunes library located? External drive? If that's the case, then how do you back up the external drive?

I have my iTunes data on external drives (spinning metal HDDs) I have music on one, TV shows on another, movies on another. Each of the external drives has a second drive as a backup. I used to have them in a Raid mirror, but I like having more disk icons on my desktop, so now I just run SuperDuper at schedules throughout the day to copy each external drive to it's backup.

 

[edubfromktown]

I tend to agree... from both ends of the spectrum.

Compared to the trashcan models, both Studio offerings are a solid deal imo

Upgrading from a 1st release M1 mini 16 GB got me:
Double the RAM
Double the storage
10 GB Ethernet
More PORTS
Better single/multi display support

       Mini M1 16 GB  Studio M1 Max Base model
Black Magic   2043.6       4285.5

  "   " Raw 17/57 fps      28/173

  ATTO    r 10009/ w 3804 r 11312/ w7450

Geekbench5  1754/7748    1784/12674
         19650       51762

 

[dizmonk]

I have my iTunes data on external drives (spinning metal HDDs) I have music on one, TV shows on another, movies on another. Each of the external drives has a second drive as a backup. I used to have them in a Raid mirror, but I like having more disk icons on my desktop, so now I just run SuperDuper at schedules throughout the day to copy each external drive to it's backup.

I'm kinda leaning on moving a lot of my media files to external drives and backing those up but I'm concerned I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be. Don't you get confused as to where each set of files are? How long have you had that setup??? I've got 3-4 TB of media files and can't keep them on my incoming Studio's SSD...

 

[roland.g]

Interesting setup but I'm confused... So say.. where is your Itunes library located? External drive? If that's the case, then how do you back up the external drive?

On my 2014 Mini I have an internal 256 and a Samsung T5 500. The Samsung is my Photos library. Then I have 2 Seagate 8TB Backup hubs. One is my iTunes library, and the other is my Time Machine drive which backs up my internal SSD, the T5, and the iTunes drive (which uses around 2-3TB of the 8. The TM drive also dual purposes as the backup drive for my 15MBP which has an 1TB SSD.