It seemed only yesterday M1 Max Mac Studio showed up as the new powerhouse in town, ready to take on all tasks. But in today’s featured setup, it’s on the chopping block for failing to handle heavy-duty rendering work for animated films well enough. The designer running the setup eagerly awaits an M2 Ultra Mac Studio.
Meanwhile, he uses Universal Control to pair his powerful desktop with an M1 iMac for basic tasks and relies on massive amounts of external storage for his humongous files.
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M2 Ultra Mac Studio will replace M1 Max model struggling with CG renders
Designer and Redditor Complete-Fix-3526 (“CF”) showcased the setup in a post entitled, “Mac setup for a designer – My setup for my days spent producing animated films… which then turn into apparel and graphic design evenings.”
He uses an M1 Max Mac Studio with 64GB of RAM and a 32-core GPU to drive a Studio Display, but the desktop computer’s not cutting it for all his render work. So a maxed-out M2 Ultra Mac Studio is on the way. Apple recently rolled out the compact-yet-powerful machine at WWDC23.
“Waiting for replacement M2 Ultra … need more juice for CG renders utilizing the GPU, and faster viewport renders,” he said. He hopes to sell his M1 Max Studio when he gets the new machine.
Universal Control brings Mac Studio and iMac together
Photo: Complete-Fix-3526@Reddit.com
Along with his Mac Studio, he runs a 24-inch M1 iMac with 8GB RAM, an 8-core CPU and a 7-core GPU. And that he uses for simple tasks like reading email and using Microsoft Teams, Mylio and Sync Pro. He pairs it with the Mac Studio via Universal Control.
“Didn’t know you could pair the iMac and Mac Studio,” a commenter said.
Here’s how CF responded, describing his use case and providing some background on his trial and tribulations with iMacs along the way:
It doesn’t act as a second monitor unless I use Luna Display. But … with Universal Control it is brilliant. Both act as separate units with the ability to use the same mouse/keyboard and copy/paste between computers. I was using a 27 inch iMac prior and the Bluetooth 4.0 was a nightmare … disconnected all the time. I found the 24 inch iMac on eBay for cheap and the benchmarks for single and multi core cpu beat the top iMac beast from 4 years ago (intel). The M1 iMac does run hot though due to the single fan with Teams … it’s a terrible compiled program even with the silicon rewrite. Overall very happy … can’t wait for my M2 to arrive.
Epic external storage
And with all that heavy rendering for animation he does, you can bet CF packs some serious external storage for supersized files. He’s got 26TB worth of external storage in the form of WD and SanDisk drives, including two portable solid state drives for toting work to the office and back.
And don’t miss the Wacom Cintiq 22HD Pen Display Tablet on the right in the photo at the top of the page. Pretty interesting device.
Shop these items now:
Photo: Complete-Fix-3526@Reddit.com
Computers:
Displays:
Input devices:
Storage:
- WD 12TB MyCloud NAS
- WD 12TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive
- SanDisk 2TB Extreme External Solid State Drives (2)
If you would like to see your setup featured on Cult of Mac, send some high-res pictures to info+setups@cultofmac.com. Please provide a detailed list of your equipment. Tell us what you like or dislike about your setup, and fill us in on any special touches, challenges and plans for new additions.
This model of Apple's medium-sized desktop computer features an M1 Ultra Chip with 20-core CPU, 64GB RAM and 1TB SSD (renewed).
