The Mac Studio had a splashy debut last year, a new desktop design with speed that filled the needs of the most demanding professionals. But it also raised a few questions at the time: Does it replace the Mac Pro? And if it doesn’t, will Apple continue the Mac Studio line once the Apple silicon Mac Pro arrives? Would the Mac Studio end up just like iMac Pro, a model that got little attention after its release and eventually was discontinued?
We now have answers that give the Mac lineup some much-needed clarity. Apple showed at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June that it is dedicated to upgrading and maintaining the high-end desktop Mac as a platform with the release of the M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio and the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. The Mac Studio is Apple’s primary offering for customers looking for a high-performance Mac, while the Mac Pro addresses a niche that needs hardware expansion.
However, the M2 Pro Mac mini that Apple released back in January provides an interesting comparison with the M2 Max Mac Studio. Whether that Mac mini or the M2 Max Mac Studio is the Mac for you depends on the kind of work you do.
This review looks at the Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, a 38-core GPU, 64GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. It has several upgrades over the entry-level $1,999/£2,099 M2 Max Mac Studio, which puts the price of our review unit at $3,199/£3,299. Apple also sells a $3,999/£4,199
