since we've only got five minutes here
let's just get straight into it starting
with design it's literally just a small
aluminium box it takes up almost no desk
real estate and just looks so industrial
and minimal now i've had a range of
different custom built pcs on my desk in
the past but this mac studio beats them
all in terms of pure looks and footprint
now there are intake grilles on the
bottom that pulls fresh air into the
chassis which is then exhausted directly
out the back now i'm not too sure how
dust build up over the years will affect
this machine and getting into the
chassis to actually clean out all of
that dust is very very difficult so just
something to keep in mind especially if
you live in a very dusty environment now
moving on to ports i think you'll find
the port selection really really solid
especially if you're coming from a
macbook or a mac mini you've got four
thunderbolt ports on the back paired
with a 10 gigabit ethernet port and that
allows for a serious amount of
connectivity although i was disappointed
to see that yet again apple has only
included hdmi 2.0 instead of 2.1 now
this isn't a massive issue because let's
be honest you'll probably be connecting
a monitor via thunderbolt or usbc but
just be aware of that limitation and
this will likely only impact you if you
want to use a 4k high refresh panel like
the e spectrum 4k via hdmi moving to the
front there are an additional three
ports an sdxc card slot and either two
additional thunderbolt ports on the
ultra version or two 10 gigabit per
second usbc ports on the max version and
yes each of these thunderbolt ports get
their own separate bus okay let's have a
quick chat about performance now the
reality is guys a lot of you won't be
able to take advantage of the sheer
power and performance that specifically
the m1 ultra version of this machine can
produce don't forget the mac studio is
typically aimed at professional users
like video editors music producers
designers or even small to mid-sized
production businesses who need a fair
amount of performance i made a video
comparing the m1 ultra mac studio to a
base model m1 mac mini and while the mac
mini obviously got destroyed it still
held up fairly well in most tasks
despite it being six times cheaper and
the mac studio again specifically the
ultraversion is specifically for those
people who know how to push either their
workflows or their software to the
absolute limit uh to take full advantage
of all the sheer performance this
machine has to offer now this m1 ultra
version is definitely overkill for my
needs the m1 max chip on my 16 inch
macbook pro can handle all of my
multi-cam 4k video editing and photoshop
and lightroom needs for example with
ease so if you're looking to buy a mac
studio make sure you do a fair bit of
research into either choosing the max or
the ultra chip because a lot of people
are going to be fine with the max chip
and there's no point wasting all that
money on the ultra chip when you can
spend it on additional ram or ssd
storage for example and if you're
wondering how the m1 ultra max studio
stacks up against an intel 12900k and
rtx 3080 pc well they're actually pretty
comparable in most workflows with the
exception of 3d modeling and also gaming
so that's one thing to consider if
you're deciding between platforms and
the other thing is that even when under
full load this machine produces barely
any heat and barely any fan noise
seriously like i can be gaming on this
machine for hours or rendering 8k videos
out
completely silent no heat or anything
like that and that's actually a game
changer for a lot of people now there
are also a couple of things you should
consider before making your purchase
decision if you're intending to do
anything 3d related like on cinema 4d or
blender you're much better off going
with a pc with an rtx gpu this is simply
because those workflows are not yet
optimized for apple silicon and also for
the same optimization reasons gaming
still sucks even on the powerful m1
ultra chip with maxed out gpu chords so
don't think you can ditch your pc and
combine everything into your new mac
studio and i go into much more detail on
why this is the case on my rtx pc versus
mac studio video so i will link that
video down below also the storage is not
upgradable on the mac studio which i
think is a little restrictive seeing as
the form factor is much bigger than a
laptop and there are literally physical
ssd ports on the logic board inside the
chassis apple has of course restricted
ssd changes via software so even though
it might physically look like it's
possible it's not at least at this point
in time so yeah i think it is a very
solid device and i think it's going to
be very tempting for a lot of people
price to performance is actually quite
good too especially when compared to an
equivalent pc mainly due though to the
massively marked up pc component prices
we're seeing currently although price to
performance is not quite as good as
other apple silicon macs like the m1 mac
mini or even the m1 pro macbook because
they essentially use the same m1 chip
and are already really powerful in their
own right apart from that guys thanks
for watching and i'll catch you in the
next one