Mac Studio - the (almost) perfect Macintosh!

You guys aren't here to talk about iPhones

I know what you want. I know what you guys want, and it's not this

So let's just get, let's get into it. Let's talk about the new Mac Studio

I wouldn't say that any of us were necessarily expecting. We were expecting a Mac Mini Pro, right

And that's essentially what we got, but I was not expecting the machine

a machine of this caliber to be released. I mean, this is the machine that I've been talking about

for ages. And I never thought we would actually get it. Right down to like, it actually has USBA ports

which you all made fun of me for years and years and years. You said that Apple would never do it

And I, you know what? You got me to believe you. I had actually given up hope, Lewis. I completely given up hope

And I was resolved to live a USBC Thunderbolt 4 life. And here we are with actual USBA ports

But I'm still in your Thunder, Leonor. I'm going to let you take it away and tell us all about the Macs Studio

because you purchased one too. So this will be interesting because we got different models. It's interesting because it's actually the Mac

Mini Pro but also the Mac Pro Mini. And I was actually wondering whether the rumors

got mixed up, you know, with this because it fits both those descriptions

isn't it? Anyway. Yeah, it does. Although I do think that this leans more

towards Mac Mini Pro and not Mac Pro Mini because I think the Mac Pro

Mini might still be modular and this is like a sealed up appliance

dramatically sealed. Ah, I see, yeah. Well, actually, that was a, yeah

that's something I want to discuss. That was this modularity, which they talked about. Anyway, so Apple on Tuesday gave us this first glimpse at its brand new Mac Studio

It's first desktop featuring the M1 Ultra Chip. It's bigger than a Mac Mini, but smaller than Mac Pro

And it's the most powerful machine Apple is built to date. It's the M1 Ultra Chip makes a Mac studio twice as fast as a high-end MacBook

Pro with a 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 120-4. 28 gigabytes of unified memory

And it's still amazingly power efficient. So like the Mac Mini, the Mac Studio is squeezed into a surprisingly small aluminum enclosure

that fits beneath most displays. So the Max Studio with the M1 Ultra is up to 60% faster than a 28 core Mac Pro

in processing and up to 80% faster in graphics, even when the Mac Pro is packing its most powerful GPU option

It packs up to 128 gigabytes of unified memory RAM plus 32 neural engine cores

32 neural engine cores, wow, and a 2X faster media engine. So on the back, there's a whole bunch of connectors

like Erfundsen said, there's two USBA ports, there's Thor Fonderbolt 4 ports, a 10-gibite

what gigabit Ethernet port. Nice to say. It's a gigabit, yeah. Nice it, nice set

Power connector, HDMI, and a high impedance headphone jack the base price

for the Mac studio is two grand which is what I spent versus 4 grand

which is what everyone spent or more I spent more for the M1 Ultra

and I you know I mean I was all hot under the color

for this but but the machine I think this is you know what this

actually is this is the relaunch of the cube yeah you know the

Power Mac cube yeah and it makes the same mistake it's like a sort of

of high-end mid-range, like a mid-range machine, you know, and it makes the same mistake

but it makes the same tragic mistake as a cube. Oh, you think it's tragic

It makes a same mistake again. Well, it's not upgradable after the fact

You can't upgrade the RAM. You can't upgrade the internal storage unless you bust it open and, you know, void your warranty

And you can't put any kind of internal components in it. Yep. And this is, I think, ultimately, what doomed the cube, you know, because it wasn't, it was aimed at

pros, but it wasn't expanded in the way that pros wanted to

expand it. So, you know, I know that you can get a lot of

external, you know, external hardware now that plugs in versus the Thunderbolt ports

that will perform almost as well as like an internal component. But, you know, I think it's still

making that same mistake again, I think. Even though I will probably

never, like, I put an IMAC a few months ago and I bought it with two

little RAM. I made a huge mistake. I got the low-end RAM configuration

The RAM is just not enough to make the machine usable. And I'd love to upgrade it, but I can't

I'm stuck with it. Yeah, I get that sentiment, but I think we're living in a new era

where people are used to the fact that they can't upgrade their stuff

It's just hermetically sealed. And if you open it, an alarm goes off into TC's office

and he sends out the white jackets to come get you. And so I don't think that people are going to care that much about

You don't think people care anymore? No, I don't. I mean, I was the guy, I am the guy that likes to upgrade my components

I have, I'm broadcasting from the Colt Commander right now, which is a 16 core EMD powered PC

And I do upgrade the components occasionally but not as often as you would think because technology moves so fast that by the time you want to upgrade a component like two to three years the motherboard architecture has changed

the chip architecture may have changed, and so you have to upgrade everything anyway. The only thing that you can really reliably upgrade

without changing out your entire computer is the GPU. And so with PCs, like you can upgrade the GPU

but GPUs are so hard to come by that, I don't really do it that often anyway

So would I like the ability to do it? Yeah, but it's definitely not a

it's definitely not a deal breaker for me anymore. I just, I think more than anything else

and I wonder if a lot of people are in this same boat as me. I just need it to work at this point

I don't want to fuss around with it anymore. I mean, I bought my, I bought my Mac studio spec out to the degree where it's going to last me

two to three to four years, right? It's already way beyond anything that I'm going to be doing

Like, I was joking. I was like maybe I should upgrade my YouTube videos to 4K now

And it's like this thing can do like, you know, 85 streams of 8K at one time

And so it's way over architected for what I need. And as long as it's reliable and it helps me create some good content on my on my dead YouTube channel that I'm about to revive, then I'll be happy with that

And I think a lot of people are kind of in that same boat. They don't really care about upgradeability

I mean, look at the Mac Pro. Like the Mac Pro is dead and it's upgradable. Yeah, right

Well, you know, I know that Phil Schiller talked about this a few years ago. Like, they did, you know, surveys of customers

I can't remember what issue we was talking about. But, you know, like, they found that, I think, like, 2% or something really, really low of people, like, upgraded their RAM

Put more RAM in. Like, almost nobody upgrades, like you said. And I think they did these surveys and they found out that, you know, there's only a small number of customers that are actually interested in this

And you might be right. Times have changed, you know, like you can get these external GPUs now, right

these boxes, can't you? They're pretty amazing that went around when the cube came out

So, I don't know, maybe it's moot. I mean, you know, I'm quite happy with it, actually. I don't really, like you said

you know, I don't want it to be upgradable. I'm sorry, I'm probably unlikely to upgrade

I'm actually probably, even though I complain about it, I'm probably actually quite unlikely to actually upgrade it

And of course, I made the mistake of getting the, I made the, this time around, I got there actually

a whole bunch of RAM. So I didn't make the same mistake of getting it, of skimping on the RAM this time

Okay, so let's get into which ones we both got and why. So you got the M1 Max version

How much RAM did you get? 64, I think. You went with 64

You know what? I'm sorry, I beg up on. What is the maximum RAM you get in it

You did not get it. No, the maximum from the M1 max is 64

So you couldn't have gotten 128. And that would have been so massively overkill for what you do, although, caveat

it would allow you to live the dream that you've always wanted to. You have 185,000 tabs open at one time

Tabmaster. Yeah, you can just tabmaster around. Boop, boop, bo, bo, bo, and you're just living your best life

Nothing's crashing. Nothing's slowing down. So maybe you should have gotten the ultra. So the max you could have gotten at 64 gigs

I'm going to guess you what was. That is, that is. So I have a 32 gig MacBook Pro, 2019

And even editing huge timelines full of, of content in Final Get Pro

I don't think I ever get past 20. So I ended up going with 64 because that was what was available in the base model

But before we get to me, so why did you decide to go with the model that you went with

Well, because, you know, I was thinking about the review. When we're going to get a review out? So I started clicking around

Like, I was going to order the ultra chip because I think that's what people are going to be interested in. But the shipping time has already slipped into April

And then I was looking at like, you know, I was thinking, well, maybe I could pick one up at the store on launch day

And I know, we could do a review about that. But in the end, I thought, well, you know, what the heck

When I was clicking the different options, the one that shipped the quickest was like, you know, the low-end machine

And I thought, well, you know, that'll do. We can do a review about that. A lot of people I think will be interested in the low-end machine rather than the high-end machine

You know, it'll just have to do. So that's why I make those choices, really. Plus, you know, like, it's a machine I'm going to be using myself personally

I'm going to retire the IMAQ. And I don't need the ultra-chip. I mean, that's crazy. But, you know, answering some emails and using stuff

Yeah. I think you might be right. There's no way. I don't need that kind of power. It's absolutely madness. So, you know, so

the low end, the low end chip is going to be perfectly fine for my needs. So, so check this

out. This is, this is one of the reasons why I thought the Mac Studio was such an impressive

machine, aside from all the I.O, which I'll go into in just a minute here. But if you got the

exact same specs, so let's say you wanted to get the M1 Max with 10 cores, 32 core GPU, 32 gigabyte

to RAM, one terabyte SSD, the MacBook Pro with those specs would cost you $3,500

and the Mac Studio for the exact same specs is only $2,400

Now, I know it's on a one-to-one comparison because you're not going to get the mini LED screen with the MacBook Pro

You're not going to get the portability or the keyboard because you've got to buy keyboard with the Mac Studio

It doesn't come with the keyboard. That's way... Their profit margins are way too low on the Macs studio to give you a keyboard

You got to buy one of those But if you already have a keyboard that you like and a lot of people do if you already have a screen that you like and a lot of people do then you can get the same computing power of the 3 MacBook Pro

16-inch MacBook Pro, for $2,400. So that's a crazy good value, right

And I thought about doing the same thing, but, you know, I just couldn't

I just couldn't. And I want to give a very special thank you

to a close and personal friend and also a Colt Castle listener, who offered me a discount on this stuff

which really helped a lot and made me kind of really just go for it

So I was trying to spec this whole thing out and figure out which Mac Studio I wanted

And I ended up going with the M1 Ultra with 48 cores, not 64 cores

because the 64 core price increase is ridiculous. It's $1,000 to go from..

Yeah, it's a $1,000 price. difference to go from 48 cores to 64 cores and that you're you're most people are not going to realize

any increase in in performance because on a MacBook or on a Mac you're rarely limited by the number

of GPU course so I think the sweet spot is 48 cores where you get instead of the um the two

pro res um encoding um up and down encoding engine um you can get four you also get instead of

of 400 gigabytes of memory bandwidth, you get 800. So you get the benefits of all both chips

and the performance of all the additional features that you get from doubling the features of both

chips without paying that premium for the extra cores that you're probably not going to use

anyway. Unfortunately, they make you buy 64 gigabytes to RAM with that, which I think it's just Apple

just trying to justify their price increase from the M1 Max to the to the M1 Ultra

Because if you think about it, like the M1 Max is a $2,000 Mac Studio machine, right

But if you go from the M1 Max to the M1 Ultra, the price doubles

And all you're getting is an extra M1 Max chip. How is that extra $2,000

I know, yeah, Killian wrote a good piece about that. Sort of like questioning it. And it was actually quite a cost of a bit of a stir because he was pointed out, you know, you're paying $1,000 for an extra chip

I'm sorry, $2,000. $2,000. You can get two of the machines I bought for the cost of one machine that you bought

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's just such a cash grab. It's just Apple saying, well, do you want the performance in one machine or not? And the price increases is absurd. Because if you also look, if you want to go from the M1 Max of 24 course to the M1 Max with 32 cores in the Mac Studio, it's a $200 price increase. But on the Ultra Mac Studio

it's a $1,000 price increase. Do the exact same thing. And they're giving you two chips, right

So you would think that the price increase would be $400, which would be in alignment with what they charge you

to increase the cores on the M1 Max or the Mac Studio with the M1 Max

But no, it's just way more expensive because they know they can do it and people are going to pay it

So that's the one that I got. How much it end up costing? I think the total, I got two terabytes of SSD

because the SSD is so fast. It's like, and when you're editing 4K content

it's nice to have everything local. And you can't get an external SSD

that comes anywhere close to how fast the MacS studios are. They're the same speed as the new MacBook Pro

Like at 7.4, I think, gigabytes a second or something. You can't even get anywhere close to that with external SSD

So I'm like, it's worth it to upgrade that. How much that cost? I think it was an extra like $400, I think

And then I got a discount. So I think the entire, I think my, entire purchase. Let's see here. I'll do the math. I think the actual retail value was like

$4,400. And I think I got mine for $3,300. So it was a nice discount. It was a big discount

Wow. It was a big discount. It was a big discount. It was a big discount. So my, my love and

appreciation to all the listeners. I've had a lot of people offer me discounts on Apple stuff

which I really appreciate because it helps. It really does. Like if I didn't have the discount, I probably wouldn't have gone ham

And I like going ham, so it really helps out a lot. And the other thing..

So what are you going to do with your old backbook now? I'm going to sell it. How much do you get for it

I was looking on eBay, two grand. Two grand for that machine

It's three years old. And how much you pay for it? I think..

I got a discount on that one, too. So I think I paid maybe 2,900 for it

But it was worth what? How much would it have been paid if you hadn't got a discount? Oh, like 35

It would have been like, no, no, it would have been like, like 4,200, 4,300. So it's kind of hard in price

It was, so I got a 25% discount on that one. Yeah, but I just sort of think it's devalued

It hard in price since it came out right I see just go Yeah which if you think about is pretty crazy that you can use a computer for three years and then sell it for half the price that you bought it for

Like that does not happen in the world of BCs. And it looks brand new too

And it's still a great machine. It's Intel based, but it's still an incredibly powerful machine

And honestly, it's probably all that I really need. But it's not all that I want

I had to do it. What do you think about the phone factor of this? studio. I love it. There's nothing about this machine that I don't love. I've said before

I want a Swiss Army knife of a computer. And this is that. I mean, Apple literally gave us everything

that I could have wanted. They have four Thunderbolt four ports on the front or on the back

excuse me, two on the front. If you get the M1 Ultra, otherwise they're USBC ports

And let me bring this up so people can look at the I.O. You get a 10G Ethernet port and they don't

even bother making you upgrade. It's just 10G. That's all you get, which is

exactly what I was hoping for. You get two USBA ports on the back

Hallelujah. Everyone sing with me. I mean, who saw that coming? You get an HDMI connector

Okay. And this was a small detail that people haven't really mentioned very much

but it's not just a headphone jack. It's a high impedance headphone jack

which means you can use it with like your high end headphones. And that was just like one of those small touches that

that you wouldn't, didn't expect, but it made the machine just that much better. And then on the front, you get

the SD card slot right there on the front so you can offload all your media there. And

then you get the insane power of the M1 Ultra. And people are comparing the, um, the GPU performance

of the M1 Ultra to the new Nvidia 3090, which you, I think, you can't even buy it because

they're, they're not even available anywhere. And that's an insanely powerful chip that costs or

insanely powerful GPU that I think costs $1,500. and how does it compare

um well well the comparison yeah well yeah like basically saying that they're they're pretty much

parallel performance which isn't which is totally nuts yeah so I don't think the price for what you get is

is actually that outrageous because this machine is so incredibly powerful and it basically

is their most powerful machine at this point um and uh it just has it just has everything that I

possibly could have wanted like I said there's just nothing about it Well, people have been waiting. It's like a unicorn, isn't it

It's the fabled, legendary, headless Mac that people have been waiting for 20 years for

20 years, right? Instead of the Mac Pro or the Mac Mini, you know, it's like, this is definitely, you know

this is a machine that a lot of people have been waiting for. And in fact, you know. Sorry, go ahead

Well, because, like, Graham, you know, Graham wrote a really good opinion piece today that's on the site

It's leading the site, and it's about how the Mac is back, you know, like it's the best lineup in 10 years

He was saying that the last 10 years have been like, a horrible wilderness for the Mac, you know, like it's been awful

But now, you know, they've got the best lineup they've ever had. I'm curious to see what happens with the Mac Pro because it seems like no matter what they do

the Mac Pro, you just end up spending tens of thousands of dollars for a machine that is out of

date within three years. It happened to the, it happened to the trash can Mac

And I would argue it's happened to the Mac Pro. I mean, people or the modular Mac Pro, right, the desktop version that they release where

you can change all the components inside. I guess it's not modular, but some has user replaceable components

Because people bought that machine and not that long after the Macs that were coming out with Apple Silicon

were outperforming it in a lot of different ways. I mean, that machine has been obsolete for at least a year

I would argue, or at least since the 2016 MacBook Pro came out. And so I'm curious to see what they do with the Apple Silicon Mac Pro

but I would be hesitant to buy that machine because it has a haunted past

People keep buying it, and it keeps being outdated really super fast, and then you can't sell it

So you basically have a $15,000 machine that you can't do anything

Well, I mean, you could use it, but it's not as fast as something that might cost, you know, one-third of the price

Was there anything else I was going to mention about the Mac Studio, or shall we move on? I think that pretty much covers it

Again, I will just reiterate, if you're looking to get one of these and you want the really powerful one

don't get the 64 core. it really is not worth the extra cost

It's so expensive to add the extra course. And all you're getting for that $1,000 extra to go from $4,000 to $5,000, all you're getting

are an extra, what is it? 16 course? Yeah, 16 course. Yeah

Did I do that math right? Probably not. God knows. Don't do it. This is why I never do math on the fly on the show because it's just too easy to make a mistake

Yeah, it's just not worth it to get the extra course because for that price tag, all you get, are the extra cores, and that's not going to be your limiting factor