Put simply, a tricked-out Mac Studio with a top-of-the-line M2 Ultra chip appears to handily outpace even expensive gaming PCs in many of our tests. When I tried to max the machine by firing up Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro I had a hard time doing so I flipped between all of them and and edited projects on a whim without any noticeable issues. Our review unit and its M2 Ultra chip are more power than I need from my Mac, but that power is great to have when doing things like batch editing photos or gaming.Īpple markets these machines as quiet, elegant cubes capable of handling demanding work like rendering 3D worlds, cutting video and touching up high-res photos, so it's perhaps no surprise that in my hands-on experience the Mac Studio M2 Ultra proved more than capable of day-to-day work.īasic tasks like staying on top of my daily diet of Chrome tabs (30+ on a good day), Spotify playlists, YouTube videos and spreadsheets are nothing to a Mac Studio M2. The Mac Studio M2 remains a squat powerhouse that's more than speedy enough for your average owner. Minor improvement over last year's model.Incredibly speedy, especially in multi-threaded workflows.Now that I've reviewed multiple iterations of the Mac Studio I'm starting to wonder why the headphone jack is on the back instead of a more accessible spot up front, but who am I to question the wisdom of Apple designers? Apple Mac Studio M2 review: Performance Not much has changed about this aspect of the Mac Studio M2's design, and it remains a capable desktop Mac for work and play. There’s also the requisite power cable jack and the power button on the lower right-hand side (when viewed from the back). On the back of every Mac Studio M2 you’ll find four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, a 10Gb Ethernet port and a 3.5mm audio jack that supports high-impedance headphones or speakers. Every model also has an SDXC card reader on the front, which is nice to have when you need to pull media off equipment like digital cameras and microphones. All Mac Studios with M2 Max chips have a pair of USB-C ports up front, while Mac Studios with M2 Ultra chips offer more capable Thunderbolt 4 ports instead. The important thing to know about the ports on the Mac Studio M2 is that the ones up front differ depending on which chipset you get. The port array on the Mac Studio M2 is basically the same as we saw on the original Mac Studio, which is fine since that pint-sized PC offered a pretty good spread. 2 front ports still USB-C on M2 Max, Thunderbolt 4 on M2 Ultra.Plenty of ports.but why is the headphone jack on the back?.You won't find a lot of surprises back there, but you will find a solid assortment of ports that should satisfy the needs of most students, creatives and families. If you're looking for the power button, it's around the back near the rear port array. It looks like a taller version of the Mac mini M2, which is just over 3 inches shorter and 3-5 pounds lighter. The design helps it blend into a variety of home office setups, resembling nothing so much as a giant metal Apple icon extruded up out of your desk. Like its predecessor it measures roughly 7.7 x 7.7 x 3.7 inches and weighs between 6-8 pounds, depending on how much processing power you pack into its brushed aluminum chassis. Tapered base aids airflow, makes the Studio appear to hover slightlyĪpple didn't mess with a good thing when designing the Mac Studio M2.To buy the same Studio direct from Apple would cost you roughly $6,199. Our review unit arrived outfitted with a maxed-out M2 Ultra (24-core CPU, 76-core GPU), as well as 128GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD. ![]() ![]() I should note that the Mac Studio M2 offers higher memory ceilings than last year's Mac Studio M1, which topped out at 64GB of memory for M1 Max models and 128GB for M1 Ultra configs. The storage is again expandable up to 8TB for an additional cost of between $400 - $2,200. The entry-level model is $3,999, and for that you get an M2 Ultra with a 24-core CPU, a 60-core GPU and a 32-core Neural Engine, as well as 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.įor $4,999 you can get an upgraded M2 Ultra with a bigger 76-core GPU, and you can double the memory pool up to 128GB for an extra $800 or triple it up to 192GB for an extra $1,600. You can also get a Mac Studio with one of Apple's brand-new M2 Ultra chips, but it's going to cost you.
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