The initial reviews for the updated Mac Studio have arrived, with reviewers heaping praise on the M4 Max and M3 Ultra powerhouse.
Apple launched its refresh of the Mac Studio on March 5, upgrading the latest iteration with its standard spec-bump update process. While it retains its appearance of a Mac mini on steroids, the new model gained some internal improvements.
This included replacing the M2 generation with M3 and M4 chips. Specifically the M4 Max in the lower-tier version and the M3 Ultra in the upper-tier variant. Aside from power, Apple also brought in Thunderbolt 5 support, supporting up to 120Gbps of bandwidth.
There are also considerably expanded memory and storage options, with configurations now going up to 16TB of storage and up to 512GB of unified memory.
Here’s what the initial reviews for the third-gen Mac Studio say about Apple’s latest update.
The Verge
In a first look for The Verge, Chris Welch insists the M3 Ultra’s performance is “never going to be on the radar of most tech enthusiasts — let alone your average consumer.” While most people should be steered towards the M4 Mac mini or the M4 Pro version, the Mac Studio is for those “who already have an idea of just how it’ll make their lives easier and more productive.”
There are objective benefits to going for the M4 Max model, including single-core performance versus the Ultra, as well as cost savings. Both still deliver “breakneck performance while running shockingly quiet,” even if the Ultra model is “overkill for many.”
“It’s for visual effects artists and animators. It’s for professionals doing ambitious audio and video production work. Are you regularly crunching big medical datasets?” the piece concludes.
Gizmodo
Describing it as a “hefty little powerhouse,” Sherri L Smith for Gizmodo insists the Mac Studio is “solidly in the realm of creative professionals and the AI coder wunderkinder.”
The base model prices are “prohibitive for the average consumer,” the piece starts, “and it only gets more painful as you look to expand the memory and storage. But, if your wallet can stomach it, the Apple Mac Studio is the new king of desktops for creative professionals and those with heavy-duty workloads.”
A literal heavyweight Mac, the design is praised with its silver anodized aluminum exterior and rounded edges. The “mullet” port layout has the “party” at the back, and the power button placement is seen as sensible compared to the base-mounted Mac mini version.
“While I would have loved to get my hands on both iterations of the Studio, I have to say that the M4 Max will suffice for a lot of creative professionals,” it is admitted. “I threw everything I had at the littlest tank, and it just laughed at my effort.”
The review concludes with the Mac Studio being “in a class of its own” for performance, with the biggest obstacle for consumers being price.
TechRadar
“Aimed at a more niche market than a thin and light laptop,” TechRadar’s Matt Hanson describes the Mac Studio as “powerful, professional-grade computers that offer a level of performance that was once only found in Mac Pro,” while still in a “stylish and compact body.”
While it doesn’t have the modular or upgradable elements of a desktop PC, some configurations won’t need an upgrade “for a long, long time.” The M3 Ultra was a surprise, and its highest performance in the Apple Silicon lineup makes things “a bit confusing,” but praise is given to Apple for being transparent on the naming at least.
The true benefit of the new Mac Studio is “how it has the potential to speed up creative workflows. By helping you create, code, compile and more so much more quickly, it means projects can be completed more quickly. This could in turn reduce costs for large-scale businesses, and it also allows professionals to take on more clients.”
The publication scores the Mac Studio at 4.5 stars out of 5. It “won’t be for everyone,” but it is “an incredibly impressive bit of kit that offers unrivalled results, especially when it comes to intensive graphical tasks.”
Tom’s Hardware
Brandon Hill of Tom’s Hardware gives the Mac Studio the same score of 4.5 out of 5. Noting the identical design to the previous generation, the 2025 releases are easily equipped to handle workloads of creative professionals.
Benchmark results showed the M3 Ultra doing extremely well across tests, befitting its hefty expense and pricey upgrades.
“The Mac Studio is a fascinating product. For less than the cost of just a Xeon or Threadripper workstation processor, you can get a fully-functioning macOS machine with some serious horsepower under the hood,” the review summarises.
While there are gripes about a lack of upgradability and the cost of increased memory and SSDs, the review concludes by declaring “the Mac Studio remains a compelling choice in a compact package.”
