Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

ashman70

macrumors 6502a
Dec 20, 2010
977
13
Do I win a prize? I replaced my 2019 28-core Mac Pro with a W6800X Duo with a fully-loaded Studio Ultra 64GPU/128GB/8TB. The Ultra is faster at every single thing I use my computer for with one exception--focus stacking huge image stacks. The Mac Pro will now be dedicated 100% to that task, so it's not a loss, but if the software vendor would update their product with Metal support, I'd bet the Studio would even be faster at that last remaining task.
Can you articulate how much faster the Studio is than the Mac Pro? 50% faster or......
 

HazardousT

macrumors regular
Mar 11, 2022
152
233
2019 iMac i9 1TB.

Was hoping for an M1 iMac 27" but Apple obviously didn't think we needed one.
 

MajorFubar

macrumors 68020
Oct 27, 2021
2,167
3,793
Lancashire UK
2011 3.4gHz i7 27" iMac with 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD and 250GB SSD which I bought nearly new from the refurb store in late 2011. It came without SSD and with only 4GB RAM. I upgraded those things myself (remember when you could do that?). It's been an absolute soldier. Something tells me my Studio won't still be working as well as my iMac is in 11 years' time, if at all.
 

OldMike

macrumors 6502a
Mar 3, 2009
537
219
Dallas, TX
Like many others here, my Mac Studio is replacing my 2013 Mac Pro. I was pretty happy when Apple finally announced an M1 desktop with adequate RAM.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Argoduck

skeewiff

macrumors newbie
Jun 21, 2010
15
23
The last mac I used was the trash can, but when that was becoming a pain to bolt things onto, I moved to PC.

My current machine is a home brew Intel i9-9940 64Gb 10TB SSD 3070. Moving to a 20|48|128|8

Will this jump feel like the quantum leap of the cheese-graters? Hope so!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Argoduck

OSB

macrumors regular
Oct 27, 2015
138
125
Do I win a prize? I replaced my 2019 28-core Mac Pro with a W6800X Duo with a fully-loaded Studio Ultra 64GPU/128GB/8TB. The Ultra is faster at every single thing I use my computer for with one exception--focus stacking huge image stacks. The Mac Pro will now be dedicated 100% to that task, so it's not a loss, but if the software vendor would update their product with Metal support, I'd bet the Studio would even be faster at that last remaining task.
On another board that I frequent, it was very recently suggested that Affinity Photo does focus stacking very well, and is AS-native. Have you had any experience with that?
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,166
1,531
Denmark
Replaced a 2009 Mac Pro (6-core x5680 3.33GHz, 64GB RAM, VEGA FE 16GB HBM) with the base Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32GB RAM). Using an TB3 enclosure with a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus.

I might upgrade when the M1 Ultra model becomes readily available.
 
  • Like
Reactions: StoneJack

spgiva

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2008
121
15
Philadelphia, PA
Mine is replacing my 2012 27" iMac (which had to have the hard drive replaced twice over the last 5 years, but otherwise served me quite well for 10 years. Hoping I get 10 years out of this one. So far I am very happy.
 

Sharky II

macrumors 6502a
Jan 6, 2004
973
354
United Kingdom
Replaced a 2009 Mac Pro (6-core x5680 3.33GHz, 64GB RAM, VEGA FE 16GB HBM) with the base Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32GB RAM). Using an TB3 enclosure with a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus.

I might upgrade when the M1 Ultra model becomes readily available.
Would love to hear about how the jump is for you, as well as what kind of work you do? I'm coming from a similar machine. I'm guessing from the VEGA FE that you're doing some kind of graphics or video work? (I'm in audio, but also use FCPX and Capture One)
 

Djlild7hina

macrumors 6502a
Mar 28, 2009
754
67
Bought a base Studio Ultra (20c/48c/64gb/1TB) to replace two machines
  • X299 Hackintosh (10980XE/64GB/1Tb/W5500)
  • Unraid server (10400/64GB/1TB/GTX 1660) for Plex.
Have my docker containers that I previously had on Unraid running in an Ubuntu VM via Parallels and Plex Media Server running on a separate account. I wanted to get 2tb at least but the order times slipped So I’m just using a 2 TB 970 EVO Plus in an NVME enclosure
 
Last edited:

MCoryB

macrumors newbie
Apr 4, 2022
7
1
2015 27" I5 iMac.

I've replaced the one I have at home and will replace the same model iMac I use at work as soon as my employer orders it.
 

StoneJack

macrumors 68030
Dec 19, 2009
2,711
1,940
Bought a base Studio Ultra (20c/48c/64gb/1TB) to replace two machines
  • X299 Hackintosh (10980XE/64GB/1Tb/W5500)
  • Unraid server (10400/64GB/1TB/GTX 1660) for Plex.
Have my docker containers that I previously had on Unraid running in an Ubuntu VM via Parallels and Plex Media Server running on a separate account. I wanted to get 2tb at least but the order times slipped So I’m just using a 2 TB 970 EVO Plus in an NVME enclosure
I have currently Asus Z490 hackintosh, Intel i9-10850, 32 GB RAM, RX 580, 1TB M2 drive, so I would like to know how your Studio fared in comparison with your Hackintosh and how u use it, what is your general impression. I use my Hack mainly for Logic Pro and FCPX projects.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: skeewiff

Mr Screech

macrumors 6502
Mar 2, 2018
260
264
A 12900k with 128gb of ram.
Sad, it's just too unstable as a workstation.
I blame windows, not the hardware. If only microsoft could get their act together - which will never happen.

If the studio ultra shows unstable behavior, I'm going to be slightly peeved.
My M1 macbook pro has been great though, even as a workhorse for a few months, so I'm not that worried.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Argoduck

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,166
1,531
Denmark
Would love to hear about how the jump is for you, as well as what kind of work you do? I'm coming from a similar machine. I'm guessing from the VEGA FE that you're doing some kind of graphics or video work? (I'm in audio, but also use FCPX and Capture One)
I'm working with graphic design, photography, coding (homepages and webshops) and the occasional event (video).

It's clear the single threaded performance just wasn't cutting it anymore with the M1 cores being so much more powerful. That can definitely be felt in my normal workflow. The power efficiency is also something else. The highest package power I've hit is around 65 Watt, using both tasks for the CPU, GPU and neural engine simultaneous. The VEGA FE alone would hit over 400 Watt on some tasks.

I guess the only reason I kept on to the old Mac Pro was the fact that I felt the 2019 Mac Pro just clearly wasn't for me and could never justify the entry price / performance ratio. I disregarded the iMac Pro and iMac as well, as I bought a Dell UP3218K (7680x4320 pixels) 8K monitor in 2018. Unfortunately it doesn't play nice with macOS and the M1 chips, so it will exhibit timing issues which can only be resolved by reconnecting it several times at every boot. It frankly sucks but I can't imagine myself downgrading to 5K or 6K.

I use Adobe CC, so only have experience with Adobe Camera RAW. The 32GB of RAM in the base model Mac Studio can be a limitation at times, especially when doing heavy focus stacking.
 

Adult80HD

macrumors 6502a
Nov 19, 2019
695
825
On another board that I frequent, it was very recently suggested that Affinity Photo does focus stacking very well, and is AS-native. Have you had any experience with that?
I haven't tried it out, but I'll give it a whirl. It looks like its very basic compared to the program I use--Helicon Focus. Helicon is AS native, but the problem is that its still using old OpenCL for graphics, so the boost using the GPU is pretty weak compared to what is *could* be. The Apple GPU doesn't work nearly as well as the AMD W6800X Duo in my Mac Pro, which is not surprising given that Apple deprecated OpenCL a number of years ago now.

Can you articulate how much faster the Studio is than the Mac Pro? 50% faster or......
It depends on the task. I do a lot of photo editing in Adobe Lightroom Classic. On the tasks I can benchmark, it's about 5-10% faster on most of them. Not a lot. A few tasks though it's much faster--50% or more. Overall though the user experience is just so much better. Everything is much more responsive and feels more fluid. I tend to be running half a dozen or more applications at the same time, and will have multiple browser tabs running. That all adds up to the pressure on the memory and CPU, and I drive two ProDisplay XDRs, so that taxes the GPU as well.

The Mac Pro will become the primary box for doing focus stacking for now as it can crunch through that really well, but I'm just amazed that a machine that cost 1/4 as much and generates practically no heat (vs. heating up my office) can be so incredibly fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Argoduck

CMT63

macrumors newbie
Mar 11, 2022
4
0
I want a new mac to replace my 24 inch 2009 iMac. It is ready to retire. I skipped many macs. I want the mac mini M2 with 4 TB4 ports so lets wait a little longer since it is not far away.
 

Acorn

macrumors 68030
Jan 2, 2009
2,643
352
macrumors
replacing a 2020 intel i5 MacBook Air. the air performs really poorly despite having 16 gb of ram. its hot enough to burn my lap too.
 

dprevett1

macrumors newbie
Mar 19, 2015
22
6
2010 Mac Pro 5,1 3.33 GHz hex-core. The 5,1 was sluggish editing some old VHS home videos that I had just had digitized. Awaiting my Studio Display and finalizing the desktop setup before I resume editing, and hoping that the M1 Max with 32 GPU cores and 32GB of RAM is faster. And I need to figure out how to dispose of the Mac Pro...
 

rw1979

macrumors member
Oct 26, 2006
72
4
Dublin, Ireland
Current: Mac Mini (2018) 6-core with 64GB RAM and Blackmagic eGPU Pro (Vega 56)

Ordered: Ultra 20/64/128/4TB due in early May

I do a lot of photography with a Nikon D850 but I have almost stopped using it as processing has been a pain for years. The new Mac Studio looks like it will be an improvement. Also I’m into astrophotography so PixInsight and Photoshop will hopefully run a bit faster and let me concentrate on taking images rather than hours on integrating and clean up tasks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Argoduck

Solenoid289

macrumors member
Jun 28, 2020
53
49
Japan
Mac mini 2018 and Windows PC...kind of.
My Mac mini 2018 died recently, so I was using a Windows PC (Core i7 10700F, RTX 3060 Ti) but it's so loud and hot it increasing room temperature by 2~3 degrees celsius even at idle.
I'm very happy with my Mac Studio, silent, faster than Core i7 10700F, and stays cool.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.