Alongside the launch of the consumer-focused M4 MacBook Air (see “M4 MacBook Air Cuts Price, Boosts Performance, Camera, and Display Support,” 5 March 2025), Apple also updated the Mac Studio. Untouched since the 2023 models that relied on the M2 Max and M2 Ultra, the revamped Mac Studio now features the M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chips, along with Thunderbolt 5 ports that increase the available bandwidth (see “Thunderbolt 5: Only Necessary for the Most Demanding Uses,” 6 November 2024). There are no other changes. The M4 Max configuration starts at $1999 and the M3 Ultra configuration at $3999; both are available for pre-order now with availability on 12 March 2025.
The M4 Max debuted in the MacBook Pro last year (see “New MacBook Pros Gain M4 Chips, 12MP Center Stage Camera, and Thunderbolt 5,” 30 October 2024), but the M3 Ultra is new. Although Apple issued a press release promoting the M3 Ultra, it doesn’t explain the decision to combine two M3 Max dies—effectively doubling the specs of the M3 Max—rather than developing an Ultra version based on the M4 architecture. When Ars Technica asked, Apple said that not every chip generation will get an Ultra chip. That may be because it’s not worth the engineering effort to develop an Ultra chip for the relatively small audience that would buy it. Apple subsequently told the French technology site Numerana (reported in English by MacRumors) that the M4 Max chip lacks the necessary UltraFusion connector that allows two Max chips to be combined into an Ultra chip.
The M3 Ultra significantly outperforms all previous chips. The Mac Studio with M3 Ultra is nearly 2x faster than the M4 Max configuration for workloads that take advantage of high CPU and GPU core counts. It’s up to 2.6x faster than the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and, although Apple doesn’t explicitly say so, probably 1.5x–2x faster than the M2 Ultra version. That’s significant for anyone with an older Mac Studio who needs more power.
The Mac Studio with M3 Ultra starts with 96 GB of unified memory and 1 TB of storage. You can configure it with up to 512 GB of memory and up to 16 TB of storage, both more than ever before. A maxed-out Mac Studio costs an eye-watering $14,099.
It’s somewhat surprising that Apple didn’t update the Mac Pro to incorporate the M3 Ultra as well, but perhaps that’s an announcement for another day. The Mac Pro primarily distinguishes itself from the Mac Studio through its PCI Express expansion slots and additional I/O ports, which cater to specialized workflows needing significant hardware expansion capabilities. Given this niche market, Apple may not feel pressure to update it as frequently as other Mac models.
There were all these rumors about the M3 supposedly not having an UltraFusion connector and thus no M3 Ultra would follow. I wonder if those rumors perhaps were half right in that they just got the gen wrong and it’s actually the M4 that doesn’t have UltraFusion and thus won’t get the Ultra. Perhaps Apple’s plan is simply to release Ultras for only every other gen (almost like the tic-toc of the olden days). Or maybe all of that is nonsense, and Apple just wants to prioritize non-Ultra Apple Silicon dev thereby leaving the Ultra versions for their low-volume sellers (Mac Studio, Mac Pro) to lag by one gen. At this point, frankly, I’m still surprised they sell a Mac Pro at all.
I know some people are guessing that there will be an M4 Ultra (or whatever Apple will call it) exclusively for the Mac Pro to give it a performance advantage over the Studio that the last Mac Pro lacked, coming later.
The M4 Max Studio only offers 32 GB of RAM with the basic-level chip. More RAM requires a chip upgrade starting at $300. The previous M2 Max Studio offered up to 64 GB with the base-model chip.
With these more recent Mac upgrades I think it is becoming increasingly clear that considering the “binned CPU” options for their base model only make sense if the RAM and storage they default offer are sufficient for your needs. On the new MBA, the binned M4 not only locks you to base RAM, but also to the base storage (which in a sense is worse, because base RAM recently just got doubled unlike base storage) — but not really a surprise since unlike the Studio, MacBook Airs have their storage also soldered (except… the 14" M4 Pro MBP has soldered storage too and yet it allows upgrading even on the binned M4 Pro config). Bottom line, on these newest systems any desire to change RAM or storage, forces you to the regular “non-binned” M4.
I believe Apple is primarily offering these binned options to hit certain price points for advertising purposes, not necessarily because they truly think these configs are appealing to most customers. Apple loves upsell and these binned configs sure encourage that.
Apple’s webpage introducing the SOCs in the new Studios shows only slight improvement (<10%) in CPU/GPU performance of the M3 Ultra over the M4 Max. They were comparing both chips to an M2 Ultra. The place where the M3 Ultra wins decisively is in the neural engine which is 80% faster in the Ultra, due, I presume, to its 32 cores compared to 16 in the Max.
It is a little surprising (and disappointing) that Apple didn’t make an Ultra M4, but I see very little advantage in the Studio with the Ultra chip compared to the Max. Moreover, the single core performance of the M4 Max is ~23% better than the M3 Ultra.
I can’t imagine paying twice as much for the Ultra Studio than the Max only for Apple Intelligence work. Have I missed something?
Sorry, I was wrong. The comparisons were to chips of the same category: M4 Max to M2 Max and M3 Ultra to M2 Ultra. My bad.
However, I noticed that the ratio of the Geekbench multicore scores between the Max and Ultra are not 2.0 as one might expect from the doubling of the number of cores but are 1.44 for the M2 and 1.46 for the M1. If this holds for the M3, the multicore Geekbench score for an M3 Ultra is only about 17% better than that for the M4 Max. Apple doesn’t give enough data to assess the GPU performance, though one would expect it to be nearly a factor of 2 since the GPU cores are not that different.
MacRumors has just posted an article about that (link below). Their claim is that in Geekbench6 multi-core, the M3 Ultra only shows about 10% higher than M4 Max. This seems to indicate that improvements to the M4 core, the memory b/w, it’s NEON units and AMX, etc. are so considerable compared to M3, that not even the M3 Ultra’s doubling of core count can make up for it.
That sounds impressive. But of course, Geekbench scores are an artificial benchmark and I strongly doubt that this 10% figure will hold once people start doing real-world testing. Furthermore, that’s only CPU multi-core testing. People whose work relies heavily on the GPU (where M3 Ultra offers an extra 50-100% cores compared to M4 Max for GB6 gains on the order of 40%) or the ANE (where M3 Ultra offers +100% cores compared to M4 Max) will also likely see very different results. I’d say it’s far too early to call it on the M3 Ultra.
On the other hand, and again only if this all holds, those who rely mainly on just raw CPU power for good-old number crunching will likely be able to sit back and enjoy the fact that they can save $2k on their next Mac Studio when they opt for a Max over the Ultra config with little lost (but strictly speaking, $2k is only true if you’re also happy with the low-end Max’s 32GB/512GB — if you prefer closer to the Ultra’s RAM/storage your savings will be just $1k at best because Apple doesn’t allow mem upgrades on the binned Mac config).
Interesting! Part of this is the impressive single core performance improvement of the M4 compared to the M3. It would also be interesting to see how the Accelerate APIs compare between the two chip since a lot of programs doing extreme number crunching would benefit from the Accelerate routines.
Again, I don’t see much advantage in most cases of the M3 Ultra over the M4 Max. And even a $1000 cost reduction of the latter is nice. Finally, many complicated programs (e.g. TeX) are single core and the M4 Max wins decisively there.
The chip scored 259668 in Metal tests, 38% more than the GPU in the M4 Max chip, which scored 187460. Compared to the M2 Ultra GPU from the previous generation Mac Studio, the new GPU is 16% faster.
I’m afraid that 9to5 article offers nothing new. It links to the same Geekbench 6 results that my post referred to (in fact, you quoted even the link I had given). 9to5 was just 6 hrs late compared to MR.
It may be that there was a decision that they wanted the M4 out right now, and that didn’t give them time to do the Ultra or possibly they had trouble with it. Maybe they will do an M4 Ultra, or we will see the M5 Ultra. Perhaps Apple may be having trouble with their pipeline, they are doing a lot of work.
Something else I find interesting about these new Mac Studios is just how well the low-end Studio competes with the high-end Mac mini.
Assume you’re not sure if you really need Max over Pro. So you’re looking at either the high-end Mac mini (14-core Pro, 24 GB) or the low-end Studio (binned 14-core Max, 32 GB). The mini is still $400 less expensive and you could argue that if you don’t need any of the Studio’s other advantages (added GPU power, extra ports, more supported displays, etc.) that’s a good savings.
But now assume 24 GB RAM is not enough for what you do, or you’d prefer more for future proofing. This is a desktop Mac after all, that could easily last you over 5 years. So now that Mac mini needs to be bumped to 48 GB. And at this point the Mac mini costs no less than the Mac Studio. You’re essentially getting all the Mac Studio advantages for free.
Now of course, if you think you need more than the base Studio’s 32 GB RAM or yet more CPU cores that means you’re going to be homing in on the higher-end Max config of the Studio and that makes it well more expensive than the Mac mini again. But frankly, if those are truly your CPU/RAM requirements, chances are you were never considering the M4 Pro mini in the first place. Well, not seriously, at least.
I did this analysis last November at 32 MB memory, and reached the same conclusion. But last week I checked again, and it is no longer true:
Mac mini with M4 Pro (12-core) and 48GB memory: $1,799
Mac Studio with M4 Max (16-core) and 48GB memory: $2,499
Even if you bump up the Mac mini to the M4 Pro with 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU (the highest you can get for the mini), it is still $1,999 … $500 less than the Mac Studio.
I think the change is due to several factors. The first is that on the Mac mini, you can’t get 32 GB memory. It is either 24 or 48 GB So if you think you need at least 32 GB, then you run into the second issue…
…which is, now to get 48 GB memory on the Mac Studio, you must bump from the base-level M4 Max (14-core CPU, 32-core GPU) to the M4 Max (16-core CPU, 40-Core GPU). This bump costs $500: $300 for the CPU and $200 for memory, as you can’t downgrade to 36 GB.
The only way they are the same price is if you compare the bottom of the bin Mac Studio (14-core M4 Max, 36 GB memory) with a bumped up Mac mini (14-core M4 Pro, 48 GB of memory), which is $1,999. The trade-off is more memory in the Mac mini (and smaller size!), vs. 12 more GPU cores and more ports with the Mac Studio.
Apple explained to French tech site Numerama that the M4 does not have UltraFusion so they cannot just double up two M4 Maxes for an M4 Ultra.
This would also put the kibosh on this idea that we’ll see M4 Ultra emerge in the updated Mac Pro. Leaving thus some excitement as to what the Mac Pro could finally bring to the table to give it a true edge over the high-end Mac Studio.
Apple justifie son choix : la puce M4 Ultra ne pourra pas exister sous la forme actuelle
Comment expliquer le choix d’Apple ? La marque a une justification toute simple, que les habitués des démontages d’ordinateurs avaient déjà découvert : il n’y a pas de connecteurs UltraFusion sur la puce M4 Max. Il est donc impossible de fusionner deux puces de quatrième génération pour créer une M4 Ultra.
My understanding is that the original M3 Max also lacked Ultrafusion. This is from someone who shaved off the top of the SOC and looked at it with a microscope. Sorry, I don’t have a reference.
It’s not a bad article, but his conclusion (not to mention the “insider scoop” oversell) is not so much revelation really, but has rather been pretty clear all along.
The moment the new Mac Studio was released, we saw an “M3 Ultra” with Thunderbolt 5 and RAM up to 512 GB. Right then and there it was already clear that this “M3 Ultra” was not just M3 Max times two. TB5 and increased RAM ceiling (M3 Max supported only up to 128 GB) are, after all, features that were introduced with the M4 — M3 never had either. So to anybody paying attention, it has always been clear that M3 Ultra was a further developed CPU and not just a doubled M3 Max like before what M2/1 Ultra were to M2/1 Max.
It will be interesting to see if Apple updates the Studio again right away when they release new M5 Macs next year or if again, the high-end Studio will wait until they release M6 Macs a year later, and if so, if it then also get a souped up M5 Ultra on the high end.
