At WWDC 2023 in June Apple surprised us with a new M2 version that features the M2 Max and an all-new, all-powerful M2 Ultra chip.
Aside from beefier internals, the Studio remains unchanged in its form factor, price, connectivity, and utility, but it now packs some serious heat under that aluminum chassis.
Here’s what you need to know about the 2023 M2 Mac Studio.
Mac Studio: M2 Max and Ultra
There are two choices, the M2 Max and an all-new M2 Ultra. Here’s a quick rundown of the specs for each:
| Row 0 – Cell 0 | M2 Max | M2 Ultra |
| Price | $1999 | $3999 |
| CPU Cores | 12-core | 24-core |
| GPU cores | 30-core | 60-core |
| Neural Engine | 16-core | 32-core |
| Memory bandwidth | 400GB/s | 800GB/s |
| Unified Memory | 32GB 64GB 96GB | 64GB 128GB 192GB |
| Storage | 512GB 1TB 2TB 4TB 8TB | 1TB 2TB 4TB 8TB |
The M2 Max chip is 25% faster than the M1 Max, and the new M2 Ultra chip has a 20% faster CPU and 30% faster GPU compared to its predecessor.
The M2 Max is up to 50% faster than the previous Mac Studio, rendering After Effects up to 50% faster and building apps in Xcode at 25 percent faster performance.
M2 Mac Studio: Design
The Mac Studio with M2 features the same 7.7-inch square chassis, standing 3.7-inches tall. It weights just under 6 and 8 pounds for the Max and Ultra respectively.
M2 Mac Studio: Connectivity
Both the M2 Max and M2 Ultra Mac Studios offer a 3.5 mm headphone jack, an HDMI port, four Thunderbolt 4 Ports supporting Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gb/s), DisplayPort, USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s), and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s).
They also feature Two USB-A ports (up to 5Gb/s) and 10Gb Ethernet. On the front, both feature an SDXC card slot, and the Ultra offers Two Thunderbolt 4 Ports, while the M2 Max version only comes with 2 USB-C ports.
Both also feature Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
M2 Mac Studio: Display Support
The M2 Max can power up to five displays simultaneously, including four 6K displays at 60Hz and one 4K, or two 6K displays and an 8K display.
The M2 Ultra supports an eye-watering eight simultaneous displays, including up to eight displays with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz, six displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz, or three displays with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.
Team it up with one of the best monitors for Mac Studio to get the most from your acquisition.
M2 Mac Studio: Release date and price
The M2 Mac Studio will be released on June 13. The M2 Max version starts at $1,999, while the M2 Ultra version starts at $3,999.
As you can imagine, a hefty slew of configuration upgrades can send this price astronomically high, but the Mac Studio can’t be tweaked or upgraded once you’ve bought one, so you only get one shot at the right configuration.