We have the New Mac Studio, and it’s been updated with the second-generation M2 DNA so that you can now configure it with either an M2 Max or an M2 Ultra chip. Now I’ve got the specked-out model here with the M2 Ultra, 192 gigabytes of unified memory, and eight terabytes of storage inside a chassis. That’s a lot of power packed inside, and I wanted to do a comparison to the M2 Pro Mac Mini, which is basically two and a half times smaller than the studio.
The price difference alone between M2 Ultra vs. M2 Pro two custom specs is close to, wait for it, seven thousand dollars. The Mac Studio is the most expensive piece of technology. It’s Apple’s state-of-the-art hardware that showcases the best of what their custom silicon can offer for high-level advanced production mass production studios that require that horsepower. So on one hand, we have the M2 Pro inside the Mac Mini, which has proved itself to be an extremely reliable machine for creative professionals. And then, on the other hand, we’ve got the M2 Ultra inside the Mac Studio.
M2 Ultra Explained!
Now let’s talk about this chip because there’s some cool engineering behind this processor. Essentially, they’ve packaged this architecture by interconnecting the die of two M2 Max chips to create a unified SOC. So you get up to 134 billion transistors, a 24-core CPU, a 76-core GPU, and up to 192 gigabytes of unified memory support. So it allowed them to quickly scale the performance by 2x compared to the M2 Max.
Mac Studio Specs and Price
Now the base Mac Studio is priced at two thousand dollars, which gets you the M2 Max with 32 gigabytes of memory and half a terabyte of storage. The M2 Ultra is unfortunately two times the price of the M2 Max spec, but you get twice the storage and memory. And, there are two for the Ultra, one with a 60-core GPU and another with a 76-core GPU. And I don’t understand is the price difference between those two variants. It’s a $1000 which honestly feels like a rip-off. I mean, who would pay 63 dollars per core to get an extra 16 cores? Then again, this is Apple that charges $400 a set of wheels for their Mac Pro, so it’s not surprising to see this here either. Now, as the spec that I have over here is priced at $8800 which is like 12G’s, it’s a lot of money, but for people who are shopping for a Mac Studio, know exactly what they’re getting into.
Mac Mini Specs and Price
The Mac Mini, which is probably one of the best value-oriented Macs that you can buy right now. The base M2 starts at just $600 with 8 gigs of memory and 256 gigabytes of storage. It’s a great all-around machine for office productivity and some creative tasks. The two pro variants cost around thirteen hundred dollars, which essentially supercharges this Mac Mini with incredible performance and power efficiency. My spec does come with a 19-core GPU instead of a 16-core GPU and a terabyte SSD, and it costs around 1800 dollars.
New Mac Studio vs Mac Mini Design and Build Quality
So, I’ve got a pretty specked-out Mac Mini going head-to-head with a specked-out Mac Studio. The real question is what kind of performance improvements and quality of life upgrades do you get between these two Macs?
Apple essentially took the same chassis of the Mac Mini and increased the height by an extra 2.3 inches to accommodate a beefier cooling system to keep temperatures under control because they’re working with a massive SOC here. So you can see the perforation at the bottom that draws in cool air into the components inside, like the power supply, the logic board hosting the M2 Chip, and the massive dual fans at the top exhaust all that hot air at the back. Whereas the Mac Mini has a teeny-tiny heatsink that just gets the job done.
I should also mention that the build quality of these Macs is just absolutely incredible. There’s just no denying the fact that Apple makes some of the best hardware in the market, milled in a single block of CNC aluminum. These things look and feel gorgeous. There’s just something about Apple products that exudes a sense of sophistication and minimalistic aesthetic. The Mac Studio takes the same amount of space as the Mac Mini did when I was testing that, so I like that consistency factor.
Read More: M2 MacBook Air Review 9 Month Later
Mac Studio M2 Ultra vs Mac Mini M2 Pro Ports
The other thing I should mention is that with the Mac Studio, you get access to a few more ports, but it isn’t that much more compared to the M2 Pro Mac Mini. At the back, the layout is pretty much the same with two USB Type-A ports, audio output, HDMI that can drive up to 8K at 60 hertz or 4K at 240 hertz, four Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an RJ45 port. An the Mac Studio, by default, comes with a 10g port, but that can be added to the Mac Mini for an extra hundred dollars.
Now, a thoughtful integration into the Mac Studio is the built-in SDXD card reader at the front and a few more Thunderbolt 4 ports. This just makes it easier to transfer footage from my camera to this Mac without looking around for adapters. And I guess if you’re in a studio environment, it’s a huge bonus, except if you’re using media forms like CF Express, then you’re out of luck. I should also mention that for some reason, Apple is still using USB 3.2 Gen 1, 5 gigabits per second, instead of Gen 2, 10 gigabits per second.
Mac Studio M2 Ultra vs Mac Mini M2 Pro Performance
I’m excited to share with you guys, and that is the performance. Now, obviously, this Mac Studio will overtake this Mac Mini in almost every test, but the question is by how much? Considering you can buy four of these Mac Minis for the price of this specked-out Mac Studio.
3D Rendering
| Cores | Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-Core 10 Minute Stress test | 14696 | 28941 |
| Single-Core | 1652 | 1747 |
The M2 Ultra can deliver almost double the performance of the M2 Pro, and that makes sense considering how well they have scaled this architecture. I was hoping for slightly better single-core results, but needless to say, things are off to a pretty good start.
| Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD | |
|---|---|---|
| BMW Scene | 2 Min 21 Sec | 1 Min 14 Second |
| Classroom Scene | 5 Min 42 Sec | 2 Min 48 Second |
Then we have Blender, where I took two of these standard benchmarking scenes, and as you can see, the M2 Ultra takes half the time of the M2 Pro to complete those tasks. that might not sound like a lot, but in reality, time is money, especially for professionals who rely on these machines to get their work done.
| Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD | |
|---|---|---|
| Houdini Grain Test File Render | 5 Min 29 Sec | 3 Min 32 Second |
| AutoDesk Maya Arnold Render Benchmark | 20 Min 46 Sec | 7 Min 48 Second |
And I testing out Houdini and Autodesk Maya. These are some of the industry-leading 3D modeling and VFX applications, and this is where you really start to see Apple unleashing the true processing power of the M2 Ultra. Keep in mind that these tests involve simulating complex visual effects, and while they do run flawlessly in real-time, the render time with Autodesk Maya is absolutely insane on the Mac Studio. The difference is almost night and day. So if you’re into that sort of work, the Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra is looking like a viable option.
Photo and Video Editing
| Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD | |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Lightroom 100 Raw .CR3 to JPEG Export | 54 Seconds | 19 Seconds |
Now, what about photo editing? Well, once again, the M2 Ultra loves to keep impressed. The Ultra exported 100 RAW files of JPEG input quality taken from my Canon EOS R in less than 20 seconds. I’ve never witnessed anything that’s faster than this.
| Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD | |
|---|---|---|
| Adobe Premiere 13 min 4k .mp4 to 4k H.264 | 8 min 35 sec | 2 min 30 sec |
| Davinci Resolve Studio 10 min 4k .mp4 to 4k H.265 Export | 3 min 14 sec | 2 min 17 sec |
| Handbrake 4k .mp4 to 1080p .mkv Conversion | 5 min 14 sec | 2 min 52 Ssec |
Moving on to video editing and transcoding performance. If you’re deeply invested in the Adobe ecosystem, this Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra is the ultimate workhorse for your needs. 4K playback performance is buttery smooth, and rendering complex timelines is a piece of cake. There’s just no competition in this form factor. The CPU, and the GPU, built-in media encoder, all work in conjunction to give you a smooth editing experience, no matter how complex your timeline looks. I was hoping for better results with DaVinci Resolve Studio because a minute of difference between the M2 Pro and the M2 Ultra isn’t all that much, considering the seven thousand dollar price difference. The ROI is just not there for this particular application. Finally, I wanted to quickly breeze over.
SSD Performance
| Mac Mini M2 Pro | 16GB Ram | 1TB SSD | Mac Studio M2 Ultra | 192 GB Ram | 8TB SSD | |
|---|---|---|
| SEQ1M Amorphous DiskMark | 6437 / 6309 | 7130 / 7950 |
| AJA Test 5K RED | 64Gb File Size | 10bit YUV | 4884 / 3865 | 6392 / 6546 |
The built-in SSDs. The eight terabyte drive inside this Mac Studio delivers respectable read and write performance. Though I was hoping for Apple to implement a Gen 5 SSD for almost double the bandwidth that you see here. But I think this is more of an architectural limitation than anything else. Maybe we’ll see that with the M3 that brings that to the horizon.
Fan Noise, Surface Temperatures, and Power Draw
If you’re wondering about fan noise, well, both these Macs are incredibly silent, even under longer and heavier workloads. I honestly didn’t hear anything other than my six terabyte spinning hard drive sitting right next to it. And the surface temperatures are even impressive. It got barely warm to the touch. I was also curious to see what kind of power draw I was on the M2 Ultra, and to my surprise, it takes about twice the amount of power as the M2 Pro at 100 watts under heavier workloads. Love power consumption is the same on both these Macs, and that just goes to show the exceptional power efficiency of these chips. We’ve seen that on laptops, and the same story applies to their desktop lineup.
Final Thought
If you’re wondering how much faster the M2 Ultra is compared to the M2 Pro, it’s very dependent on the type of application. I saw huge benefits in Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Autodesk Maya, and Houdini. And while there’s a small difference in gaming performance, I didn’t really have any expectations because this isn’t necessarily what these Macs are made for.
Now, I’m sure you wondering, should you get this Mac Studio? if you have the budget for it and you’re a content creator, a studio owner, or someone who’s just looking to get the best of the best, then absolutely, Mac Studio is worth the investment. It’s got the power, the performance, the build quality, the aesthetics, and everything else that you would expect from a premium Apple product. On the other hand, if you’re on a tighter budget, but you still want excellent performance, then the M2 Pro Mac Mini is still an incredible option. It’s a fraction of the price, it’s compact, and it’s powerful. It’s perfect for someone who needs a reliable machine for their work.
