Mac Studio M4 (and M3): What you need to know

The M2 Max and Ultra Mac Studio were released back in 2023 at WWDC. The company then completely bypassed the M3 generation and, even with the advent of the M4 era in 2024, made no moves to update the Mac Studio, leaving pro Mac users waiting (and waiting) for Apple to update the Mac Studio.

Finally, on March 5, 2025, Apple has launched the new Mac Studio (on the same day as the M4 MacBook Air.)

Apple’s new Mac Studio comes with either a M4 Max or, embarrasingly for Apple, an M3 Ultra.

M4 Mac Studio: Release date

• Pre-order the 2024 Mac Studio from Thursday, March 5
• On sale from Wednesday, March 12

We’ve had two generations of Mac Studio. The first gen (M1 Max and Ultra) was released in March of 2022. The second-gen (M2 Max and Ultra) was revealed at WWDC23 in June 2023.

The new Mac Studio will go on sale on March 12, 2025.

We had thought that the new Mac Studio would see a price drop in the U.K. but this hasn’t happened.

M4 Mac Studio: Design

The Mac mini had a redesign when Apple introduced the M4 and M4 Pro versions, but no changes have been made to the design of the Mac Studio. The current design works well so this is unsurprising.

M4 Mac Studio: Specs and features

The new Mac Studio comes in two configurations that use two different generations of Apple chip. The M4 Max and M3 Ultra.

There was some expectation that the Mac Studio would be updated alongside the Mac Pro at WWDC in June. However, the absense of the M4 Ultra version of the Mac Studio makes it clear that Apple isn’t ready to lauhch the M4 Ultra Mac Pro yet.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Apple has taken until now to upgrade the Mac Studio to the M3 Ultra. This wasn’t a complete surprise though. On March 4, 2025, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman posted that the new Mac Studio could use an M4 Max and an M3 Ultra, not an M4 Ultra.

It seems like an odd thing to do, though the M3 Ultra will be faster than an M4 Max, but the difference will be smaller than if it were an M4 Ultra.

Apple’s M4 Ultra, when it does arrive, will combine two M4 Max chips to offer double the CPU and GPU cores.

Why wouldn’t Apple just go with an M4 Ultra? Perhaps there are manufacturing issues. Or perhaps Apple wants to create separation between the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro, which is rumored to have the M4 Ultra. Read all about the rumors of the M4 Mac Studio and the M4 Ultra Mac Pro.

Regardless, the M4 chip is still very impressive, in fact, in our Geekbench tests the M4 Max beat the M2 Ultra. Read: How Apple’s M4 chips dispelled all my fears about buying a new Mac. When the M4 Ultra launches you can expect something exceedingly fast and powerful, but until then the M3 Ultra will have to do.

Another upgrade is Thunderbolt 5 implementation, an upgrade from Thunderbolt 4 in the current Mac Studio. With the M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pro, Apple implemented Thunderbolt 5, so it will happen with the new Mac Studio. Learn more about Thunderbolt 5.

The other features of the Mac Studio remain the same. That means no changes to the ports, connectivity, speaker, SSD sizes, or display support.

2025 Mac Studio specs:

• $1,999/£2,099: M4 Max with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB unified memory, 512GB SSD
• $3,999/ £4,199: M3 Ultra with a 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 96GB unified memory, 1TB SSD

To recap, the 2022 Mac Studio specs were:

• $1,999/£2,099: M2 Max with a 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB unified memory, 512GB SSD
• $3,999/ £4,199: M2 Ultra with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB unified memory, 1TB SSD

Mac Studio (M4 Max, 2025)

Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 2025)