(light music)
- What's up guys, Saf here on SuperSaf TV.
And in the studio,
we have the Mac Studio as well as the Studio Display.
That's a lot of studios.
But anyway, I've had these for about a week now
and my Mac Studio configuration is the M1 Ultra
with a 64-core GPU, 128 gigabytes of unified memory,
and a four terabyte SSD.
And the price for this configuration
is around 6,800 pounds or dollars,
just to give you some context.
Now, in terms of my personal workflow
I generally use a desktop PC as well as my MacBook Pro.
So the comparisons for performance
that I'm going to be doing in this video will be to those.
Now we will be talking about the Studio Display
a little bit later in this video,
but initial let's talk about the Mac Studio.
So for the design,
it looks very much like a Mac mini stretched.
You could stack, I'd say,
maybe two and a half, three Mac minis together
to get to the size of this.
But regardless, it is still really compact.
I mean, it fits comfortably underneath the Studio Display.
Much, much smaller
compared to pretty much any other desktop PC
that's going to have somewhat similar performance.
Now this doesn't mean that it's not user expandable
but I do like this minimal design.
I mean, it only comes in a silver.
I would've liked to have had black, of course.
And at the bottom, there is the perforated design
that pulls in air from the bottom
which goes through a double sided blower
and then exhaust out through the back.
Now, one thing to note is that the M1 Max Mac Studio
does weigh about one kg less than the M1 Ultra.
And although the thermal architecture is the same,
it's actually the cooling body that is different.
Now, I'm not somebody who's going to open this up
to kind of see exactly what's different,
but yes, the M1 Ultra Mac Studio does weigh a bit more.
I'm not sure that's really going to matter
because it's going to be sitting on your desk anyway.
Now let's talk about the ports
because I'm really happy with the port selection
that we have here on the Mac Studio.
So we've got four Thunderbolt 4 ports,
one 10 gigabit ethernet ports which is as standard.
Then we have the power port.
Now, this is just a standard power port,
it's not magnetical, like we have on the iMacs.
There's two USB type ports, one HDMI 2.0, not 2.1,
as well as one pro 3.5 millimeter headphone Jack.
So that's plenty of ports the back
which I'm very happy with.
But the thing that really surprised me
and I didn't think Apple was going to do,
was include some IO at the front too.
So on the M1 Max version
you'll get two USB type-C ports
with speeds of up to 10 gigabits a second,
but on the M1 Ultra version
you'll get two additional Thunderbolt 4 ports
with up to 40 gigabits are second speeds.
As well as that, we have an SD card slot.
This is amazing.
I love the new approach that Apple is taking.
We've got the SD card slot back on the MacBook Pro.
We've got it here at the front on the Mac Studio.
And it really seems like Apple is taking feedback on board
and bringing studio professionals what they really want.
Now you can connect up to four Pro Display XDR
plus a 4K TV to the Mac Studio.
I'm not sure why anybody would want to do that,
but hey, if you do that, that is available there.
Now let's talk about performance.
So I've been using the M1 Max chip on my MacBook Pro
for the past few months, and it's been absolutely awesome.
It pretty much handles anything that I throw at it.
The M1 Ultra is pretty much two M1 Maxs fused together.
So Apple uses die to die interconnect technology
which they call UltraFusion.
And as far as software is concerned,
the M1 Ultra will still appear as a single SoC.
So it's going to be able take full advantage of it.
Time for some benchmarks.
Now, I've mostly compared this
to my M1 Max powered MacBook Pro
to really give us an idea of the differences
between the M1 Max and the M1 Ultra.
And on Geekbench 5, as expected,
the single core score is roughly about the same.
But when it comes to the multi core score,
the M1 Ultra with the studio scores almost double that
of the MacBook Pro with the M1 Max.
with OpenCL on Geekbench 5,
we've got around a 1.4 times higher score.
And on Cinebench, again,
we have a very similar single core score
but the multi-core score is almost double with the M1 Ultra.
And with 3DMark Wild Life Extreme
you've got around a 1.7 times higher score.
So those are the benchmarks, which are very impressive,
but what does that translate into real world performance?
So personally speaking, I generally use Adobe Premier Pro
and I shoot in 4K on my Sony a7S III.
I tend to have a multi camera set up
with some simple color grading
as well as some motion graphics.
I uploaded a video yesterday of the iPad Air.
If you've not seen it yet
you can check it out after this video.
I'll link it in the cards and down in the description.
But that's roughly a nine minute video.
And exporting that on my M1 Max powered MacBook Pro,
this took a total of two minutes and 34 seconds to export,
which was pretty fast.
On the M1 Ultra Mac Studio, it took a total of...
Drum roll. (drums rumbling)
Two minutes and 31 seconds.
(record scratching) Okay.
So it shaved off three seconds,
which is more of a testament
to how good the M1 Max is really,
because if we do compare this to my desktop PC
which has the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
as well as the GeForce RTX 3070,
that actually took five minutes and 33 seconds,
more than double the time.
But then I did try to do some further tests
and I tried to export 500 raw 24 megapixel images
with some edits in Lightroom,
and on my MacBook Pro this took just under six minutes
whereas on the Mac Studio it took just over three minutes.
So, almost half the time. That is very impressive.
Now, clearly it seems that for my workflow
the M1 Max is more than enough.
And I think that's going to be the case for people.
However, if you are somebody
who's doing lots of 3D animation,
tasks that require machine learning,
then I really do think you'll appreciate the M1 Ultra.
I mean, you can have up to 18 streams of 8K ProRes video.
On the M1 Max you'll be able to do nine streams,
which is still quite a lot.
The other thing that I also noticed in my usage
is just how silent this is,
even when you are exporting video
or going through some intensive timelines.
And the Mac Studio also consumes less power
compared to other desktop PCs.
In the keynote, Apple mentioned that the Mac Studio consumes
1000 kilowatt-hours less energy
than a high end desktop over a year.
Now I've personally not been able to test this as such,
but with energy prices soaring
I'm sure people are going to appreciate this.
Right, now let's talk about the price for the Mac Studio.
So the M1 Max starts at around 2,000 pounds or dollars.
The M1 Ultra version starts at double the price,
so around 4,000 pound or $4,000.
Now as mentioned, I think most people,
and probably 90, 95% of the people watching this video
will be more than happy with the M1 Max Mac Studio.
But for those of you who have the money
and want the absolute ultra performance,
then the M1 Ultra powered Mac Studio is absolutely insane.
Now, if you asked me,
the configuration I would go for would be the M1 Max.
I'd pay 200 pounds extra to go for the 32-core GPU.
32 gigabytes of unified memory is generally okay,
but I would probably go for the 64 gigabytes
of unified memory just to future proof.
And I'd personally pay
for the two terabytes storage version.
And that comes to a total of around 3,200 pounds.
That's personally the configuration I would go for.
Let me know which one you might be going for.
Now, let's talk about the Studio Display,
which goes really nicely with the Mac Studio.
Intentionally, of course.
So this is a 27 inch 5K retina display
with 600 knits of brightness,
a P3 wide color gamut, and anti-reflective coating.
And this is priced at 1,500 pounds,
but you can pay 250 pounds or more
if you want the nano texture glass
which is going to minimize glare.
It does come with this stand, as standard.
This has a 30 degree tilt,
but if you do want the height adjustable stand
that's going to cost an extra 400 pounds.
Now, it looks like a very good stand
but 400 pounds is a lot of money.
And you can also get it with a vesa mount adapter option.
Now, this is actually a really nice display.
We've got uniform bezels,
and I know a lot of people are going to say in the comments
that you can get really good displays at much lower prices.
Personally speaking, on my day-to-day
I use my 38 inch LG ultra wide.
I prefer the ultra wide format, especially for my workflow.
But here's the thing,
the Studio Display fits seen really well
with the Apple family.
It's got the perforated design
and we've got an aluminum build,
which makes this quite premium.
Most monitors that I've tested
do generally have a plastic build.
But what really makes this unique
is that it has the A13 Bionic chip built in.
The A13 Bionic chip is what we had on the iPhone 11.
And this it to have a 12 megapixel ultra wide camera
with Center Stage.
So Center Stage is something that we have
across the iPad line,
and it's great for video calls.
And it's going to track you when you move from side to side,
so you don't necessarily have to stay static.
Now, again, there's lots of web cam options available
that you can buy in addition with your monitor,
but this integrated package is really what I think
will make the Studio Display a compelling option for many.
It also has a three mic array
with a six speaker sound system that supports spatial audio.
You've got four force-canceling woofers
and two high performance tweeters.
And in my opinion, these sound absolutely great.
Some of the best speakers that I've heard on any monitor.
Sure, you can get some external speakers
which will be louder and give you more bass.
But in this minimal setup these speakers are ideal.
At the back we've got three USB-C ports,
as well as one Thunderbolt port
which has 96 Watts of host charging.
So you can just connect your MacBook to the Studio Display
with the one cable, which comes included and it's braided.
You also do get the polishing cloth
which sells for around 19 pounds or $19.
So, hey, that's a bonus.
But what's great about this
is if you do have the MacBook Pro 14 inch,
you're actually going to be able to fast charge that
while it's connected to this Studio Display.
You can also connect three Studio Displays
to your MacBook Pro if that's something that you'd want to do.
But overall, I think this is an excellent display
and yes, there are lots of other monitor options out there
which you'll find for a lot less as well.
I just think that the Studio Display goes really nicely
with the Mac Studio setup.
The one thing that I would've liked of course, again,
is if it came in black,
especially now that we have the black magic mouse
as well as the black track pad,
and the magic keyboard with the black keys.
But anyway, that is the Mac Studio
with the Studio Display in the SuperSaf studio.
I got to say, I'm very impressed with the Mac Studio
and just the performance with Apple Silicon.
I mean, we're still going to be getting a Mac Pro.
I wonder what they're going to do with that.
Maybe they're going to combine two M1 Ultras
into an M1 Ultra Max or something, I don't know,
but that's something that's going to be completely overkill
for somebody like myself.
As mentioned, I think the M1 Max will be fine
for most people.
That's what I think anyway. What do you guys think?
Do drop me a comment below. Let me know your thoughts.
I hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful.
If you did, then do smash that like button for me.
I'm going to leave some related videos linked here
in the cards as well.
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Thanks for watching.
This is Saf on SuperSaf TV. I'll see you next time.