Apple unveils the new Mac Studio with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips

Apple has unveiled the new Mac Studio featuring the M4 Max chip and the M3 Ultra chip. The announcement follows the new iPad Air and the M4 MacBook Air that launched this week.

While the compact design of Mac Studio remains unchanged, Apple says the latest Mac Studio brings pro performance and a “massive leap for users” coming from older Macs. The M4 Max chip on the new Mac Studio can be configured with up to a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory. Apple says the Mac Studio with M4 Max is up to 3.5x faster than the Mac Studio with M1 Max.

The all-new M3 Ultra chip takes it further on the Mac Studio, offering nearly 2x faster performance than the M4 Max in workloads that demand higher CPU and GPU core counts. The new Mac Studio with M3 Ultra features an up to 32-core CPU, which is 50 percent more than any previous Ultra chip and the most CPU cores ever in a Mac. It also boasts an up to 80-core GPU, more than any Apple silicon chip, and a powerful 32-core Neural Engine.

The latest Studio hardware can be configured with up to 16TB of SSD storage, double the number than its predecessor. Moreover, the M3 Ultra variant comes with up to 512GB of unified memory, a massive increase from the M2 Ultra’s 192GB of unified memory. The hardware upgrade makes the Mac Studio a powerhouse for AI, with the ability to run large language models (LLMs) with over 600 billion parameters entirely on device. And of course, it supports Apple Intelligence.

On the connectivity front, Apple has added support for Thunderbolt 5 which has up to 120Gbps data transfer speed, in addition to the existing WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The Mac Studio with the M4 Max chip has four Thunderbolt 5 ports, and the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra chip has six of them. The new Mac Studio can be used with up to eight 6K displays for higher workflows.

The new Mac Studio with the M4 Max chip starts at $1,999, and the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra chip starts at $3,999. Preorders are open today, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 12.