Apple ushers in M1 Ultra with the Mac Studio

After unveiling a new iPhone SE and iPad Air 5, Apple’s Peek Performance event took a turn to the unfamiliar with the Mac Studio, which offers a huge amount of power for content creators – provided they’re making enough money to justify the monster outlay.
 
Powered by the freshly announced M1 Ultra (or M1 Max if you want to save a couple of thousand quid), the Mac Studio offers some serious additional power on the Mac mini – and, indeed, the iMac and Mac Pro computers that have come before it. 
 
Apple says that the M1 Ultra version is 3.8 times faster than the fastest iMac, and it also offers a boost on the previous Apple favourite for video editors, the Mac Pro. It is, according to the company, 90% faster than the 16-core Intel Xeon model and 60% nippier than the 28-core Xeon version.

The M1 Max version is more familiar: “just” 2.5 times faster than the fastest 27in iMac. Both offer up to 8TB of storage, but there’s another difference in terms of RAM, with the M1 Ultra version capable of shipping with 128GB of unified memory to the Max’s 64GB. 
 
It looks a bit like a Mac mini that’s put on some weight and height. It’s 7.7in square and 3.7in tall, so will sit under any display you want, even if Apple will be hoping you’ll grab the freshly announced Studio Display at the same time.  
Speaking of screens, thanks to the power of the M1 Ultra chip that can power the Mac Studio, Apple boasted that you can connect up to four XDR displays and an extra 4K TV for good measure. 
 
Indeed, according to Apple, connectivity is key for creators and as such you won’t be short of a port or two. Round the back are four Thunderbolt ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, one 10GbE port and a pro audio jack. On the front, there are two USB-C ports and an SDXC slot for memory cards. In terms of wireless connectivity, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 are built-in.  
All of this power and connectivity comes at a price, however, and it’s a big one. The M1 Max model starts at £1,999, with the Ultra version beginning at £3,999. Just for fun, I added everything I possibly could to the Ultra model, adding in the 64-core M1 Ultra, 128GB of memory and 8TB storage. The price came to £7,999. Suffice to say, amazing as it looks, I didn’t check out today.