Apple just released the MAC Studio upgrades for the year 2025, powered by both M4 Max and M3 Ultra. Yes, it will be available in two flavors: M4 Max will be up to 128GB unified RAM and M3 Ultra gets up to 512GB Unified RAM. The M3 Ultra Studio doubles the memory bandwidth (819 GB/s vs. 546 GB/s) and supports up to 512GB of unified memory, making it ideal for memory-intensive tasks like running large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters entirely in memory. This might be the one that gets to run the Deepseek q4 locally at acceptable token/second.
Comparison of Updated Mac Studios: Mac Studio (M4 Max) vs. Mac Studio (M3 Ultra)
| Feature | Mac Studio with M4 Max | Mac Studio with M3 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Chip | M4 Max | M3 Ultra |
| CPU Cores | 14-core (10 performance, 4 efficiency) or 16-core (12 performance, 4 efficiency) | 28-core (20 performance, 8 efficiency) or 32-core (24 performance, 8 efficiency) |
| GPU Cores | 32-core or 40-core | 60-core or 80-core |
| Neural Engine | 16-core (up to 38 TOPS) | 32-core (estimated ~2x M3 Max’s 18 TOPS, ~36 TOPS) |
| Unified Memory | 36GB, 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB | 96GB, 256GB, or 512GB |
| Memory Bandwidth | 546 GB/s | 819 GB/s |
| Storage Options | 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB SSD | 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, or 16TB SSD |
| Thunderbolt Ports | 4x Thunderbolt 5 (up to 120 Gb/s) | 6x Thunderbolt 5 (up to 120 Gb/s) |
| Other Ports | 2x USB-A, HDMI, 10Gb Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone jack, <br> 2x Thunderbolt 5 (front), SDXC slot | 2x USB-A, HDMI, 10Gb Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone jack, <br> 2x Thunderbolt 5 (front), SDXC slot |
| Performance (CPU) | Up to 1.5x faster than M2 Max (multi-core) | Nearly 2x faster than M4 Max (multi-core) |
| Performance (GPU) | Up to 2x faster than M2 Max (ray tracing) | Up to 2x faster than M4 Max (graphics workloads) |
| AI Capabilities | Strong for on-device AI (e.g., LLMs up to 128GB) | Superior for large LLMs (up to 512GB in memory) |
| Starting Price | $1,999 (14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB RAM, 512GB SSD) | $3,999 (28-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 96GB RAM, 1TB SSD) |
| Target Use Case | High-performance creative work, video editing | Extreme pro workflows, AI/ML, massive multitasking |
| Availability | March 12, 2025 | March 12, 2025 |
Pre-orders are now open at Apple.
