Mac Studio M4 MAX On Order
22/03/25 16:44
In March 2025 Apple announced the latest Mac Studio specs. I'd had my eye on getting a Mac Studio ever since my 10-year old Mac Pro 6.1 (Trashcan) died last summer and was waiting for "the next refresh" before pushing the button.
I've been loving my MacBookPro M1 MAX ever since I got it in mid-2022 for swift (yet totally silent) fan less editing - I don't think I've ever heard the fans even when dealing with complex 4K client projects in FCP or Adobe CC. However, one thing I learnt was that external drives (even Thunderbolt 4 ones like the 2TB G-Drive I have) cannot match the speed of the internal hard drive in the MacBookPro - see MacBookPro M1 MAX for details. We all know Apple charge stupidly high cost for larger SSDs (as well as RAM) but it's just one of those things you have to decide at the point of ordering. With one exception modern Macs are not user upgradeable for RAM - and only with difficulty/expertise likely beyond me for the SSD too.
The new M4 MAX Mac Studio comes with four Thunderbolt 5 ports (those on the rear) which opens up some great opportunities. However, very few external Thunderbolt 5 drives are currently available. The OWC Ultra Envoy Thunderbolt 5 is one option I might try at some point - see HERE - available in 2 and 4 TB sizes (the one I'd choose) and claiming 6,000 MB/s speeds (which should more than equal the Mac Studios internal drive). The 4TB drive is currently about £580 so certainly a lot more affordable than adding that kind of extra capacity to the Apple's internal drive at the point of ordering! Not sure I'm keen on the captive cable though - will watch and wait to see how rugged, reliable and speedy (in real world usage) people find this OWC drive to be. Early reviews seem promising so it's certainly a potential option for me in the near future.
Anyway, I bit the bullet and got the Mac Studio with the 16/40 M4 MAX SoC and 64GB RAM upgrades and a 2TB SSD.
As you'll know, Apple won't let you upgrade the RAM from the base 32GB unless you go for the M4 MAX processor with more cores. I did read somewhere that all Mac desktops (Mini, iMac, Studio & Pro) taken together are still only 14% of Mac sales so I guess this streamlining of SKUs is partly understandable. 64GB RAM is really the minimum amount I'd want these days (my old Trashcan Mac Pro only had 32GB RAM which became limiting at times during its 10-year lifespan as my main workhorse).
I was toying with just getting a 1TB SSD. The base 512GB is way too stingy to be worth considering anyway, but despite the extra cost, I decided on 2TB. This is for maximum flexibility. Back-ups of project work-in-hand and anything else will simply live on external drives. The Mac Studio should arrive in early April and time will tell if this was the correct approach.
One last thing. Why not the M3 ULTRA? Very simple really, aside from the "why isn't it an M4 ULTRA" noise in all the Apple forums, it is well out of my price range anyway! The MacBookPro M1 MAX has shown me it's more than capable of my professional needs so this new Mac Studio M4 MAX should be a dream machine for the studio as the new main workhorse - with the MBP as the back-up/portable option.
I've been loving my MacBookPro M1 MAX ever since I got it in mid-2022 for swift (yet totally silent) fan less editing - I don't think I've ever heard the fans even when dealing with complex 4K client projects in FCP or Adobe CC. However, one thing I learnt was that external drives (even Thunderbolt 4 ones like the 2TB G-Drive I have) cannot match the speed of the internal hard drive in the MacBookPro - see MacBookPro M1 MAX for details. We all know Apple charge stupidly high cost for larger SSDs (as well as RAM) but it's just one of those things you have to decide at the point of ordering. With one exception modern Macs are not user upgradeable for RAM - and only with difficulty/expertise likely beyond me for the SSD too.
The new M4 MAX Mac Studio comes with four Thunderbolt 5 ports (those on the rear) which opens up some great opportunities. However, very few external Thunderbolt 5 drives are currently available. The OWC Ultra Envoy Thunderbolt 5 is one option I might try at some point - see HERE - available in 2 and 4 TB sizes (the one I'd choose) and claiming 6,000 MB/s speeds (which should more than equal the Mac Studios internal drive). The 4TB drive is currently about £580 so certainly a lot more affordable than adding that kind of extra capacity to the Apple's internal drive at the point of ordering! Not sure I'm keen on the captive cable though - will watch and wait to see how rugged, reliable and speedy (in real world usage) people find this OWC drive to be. Early reviews seem promising so it's certainly a potential option for me in the near future.
Anyway, I bit the bullet and got the Mac Studio with the 16/40 M4 MAX SoC and 64GB RAM upgrades and a 2TB SSD.
As you'll know, Apple won't let you upgrade the RAM from the base 32GB unless you go for the M4 MAX processor with more cores. I did read somewhere that all Mac desktops (Mini, iMac, Studio & Pro) taken together are still only 14% of Mac sales so I guess this streamlining of SKUs is partly understandable. 64GB RAM is really the minimum amount I'd want these days (my old Trashcan Mac Pro only had 32GB RAM which became limiting at times during its 10-year lifespan as my main workhorse).
I was toying with just getting a 1TB SSD. The base 512GB is way too stingy to be worth considering anyway, but despite the extra cost, I decided on 2TB. This is for maximum flexibility. Back-ups of project work-in-hand and anything else will simply live on external drives. The Mac Studio should arrive in early April and time will tell if this was the correct approach.
One last thing. Why not the M3 ULTRA? Very simple really, aside from the "why isn't it an M4 ULTRA" noise in all the Apple forums, it is well out of my price range anyway! The MacBookPro M1 MAX has shown me it's more than capable of my professional needs so this new Mac Studio M4 MAX should be a dream machine for the studio as the new main workhorse - with the MBP as the back-up/portable option.