The 2025 iteration of the Mac Studio marks a new era in personal computing for Apple, since it pushes the limits of what can be achieved, using what is essentially a larger version of the next Computer Unit (NUC) of Intel.
I entered its full and high -end version, the Ultra M3 with a 16 -TB SSD and 512 GB of RAM against the competition to have an approximate idea of ​​how good a bargain is. As expected, it easily competes against some of the best workstation PC in the world.
There is a trio of Rigrips Threadripper, seven work stations of Xeon (in three generations) and, to a large extent, the magnificent Nvidia digits and three of the Apple’s own PCs, the Mac Mini (M4 Pro), the Mac Pro (M2 ultra) and a less capable version of the Mac Studio (M4 Max).
The entire table is at the end of this article. Keep in mind that some cells are empty because I simply do not have the information by hand (for example, size of some work stations, digit performance, etc.).
Credit where the credit is due, Apple managed to deliver something that did not expect me to do soon: 512 GB of unified memory on a computer.
That genius coup meant moving the comparison with Intel Xeon and AMD Threadripper Pro systems, much more expensive professional platforms compared to the AMD Ryzen and Intel Core.
In addition to concentrating on the vertical workstation, he also firmly points out Apple’s ambitions as an important player in the Local Ai al Rojo Live AI hardware market.
(It is worth reviewing my article published in June 2023 where I suggested that the Mac Studio would replace the Mac Pro (and put PC suppliers nervous).
I analyzed the prices of these systems (using the most up -to -date data I could find) and there are no way to put them.
A $ 14,000 bargain if you are looking for memory
The Apple Mac Studio Ultra, even at more than $ 14,000, is a bargain if you are looking for the largest amount of memory of the system as possible, at $ 28 per GB.
That is a little less than the Puget systems and almost a third of what I would pay for a maximum Mac Mini (or half of the Apple Mac Pro with its 192 GB RAM).
The most important thing is much, much cheaper than the tastes of Dell or HP; It turns out that Windows’s work stations with medium RAM of Terabyte are not cheap.
Remember that Apple uses unified memory that has a much higher bandwidth (800 GB/s) than DDR5 memory (even in eight memory modules).
It offers the type of performance that would expect from an integrated GPU; as Patrick Kennedy de Servethehome This: “The cost is high in the context of a workstation, but it is cheap when compared to the cost of NVIDIA per GB of memory.”
Remember also that I have configured this workstation with storage on board 16 TB; No other important player has access to this type of storage unless Raid-0 resorts in multiple SSDs much smaller.
There is also the fact that it comes with 10gbe Lan by default, as well as Thunderbolt 5, a data transfer technology that is not available for any other workstation at the time of writing, which, in due time, will search the path for innovative external peripherals.
I also observed another 3 compound metrics, all looking at the processor’s performance (based on the popular Geekbench 6*) and, as expected, Apple stood out in all three: Geekbench Point per dollar, Geekbench Point per core and geekbench point by volume.
M4 (Mac Mini and Mac Studio) devices had the cheapest yield for $ 0.20, it is almost 1/8 of the most expensive (HP G4).
It also had the highest performance per nucleus (1623, 5x faster than the slowest processor, an Intel Xeon) and the highest performance per unit of volume (more than 140x compared to the worst entry).
The details of the GPU are still a mystery
The great stranger remains the official GPU metrics, since it is difficult to measure the performance of Apple’s graphics in different chip systems, since Apple does not disclose additional data beyond the central numbers.
For the sake of simplicity, I chose the Ada Nvidia RTX 2000 generation as the default card, provided it is possible, since it was the cheapest professional graphics card that came with 16 GB of RAM. Only one input used the RTX 4000 ado generation with 20 GB of RAM.
Technological publication, TechpowerupHe estimates that the RTX 2000 AG should be slightly slower than an RTX 3060.
Apple M3 ultra obtains just under 130,000 brands in the Popular OpenCl Geekbench testsThat is 50% faster than RTX 2000 AG, so for a more balanced comparison, readers may want to replace a more powerful (and expensive) card such as the NVIDIA RTX 5000 ADA generation.
* Geekbench inputs 6 unfortunately they are not averaged. So I chose what the median considered on the first page of each CPU. Your mileage can vary.
Header cell – column 0 |
Price |
UPC |
Geekbench 6 |
GPU |
OPENCL |
RAM (GB) |
Storage (TB) |
Ray |
LAN |
Height (mm) |
Width (mm) |
Depth (mm) |
Volume in l |
Weight (kg) |
Price per GB/RAM |
RAM/L. |
GB6/$ |
GB6/Core |
GB6/L. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Avadirect Xeon Gold 6338 |
$ 9,587 |
32 |
10419 |
RTX2000E AG |
75949 |
512 |
16 |
4 |
10 |
Row 0 – Cell 10 | Row 0 – Cell 11 | Row 0 – Cell 12 | Row 0 – Cellular 13 |
? |
$ 19 |
Row 0 – Cell 16 |
$ 0.92 |
326 |
#Div/0! |
Avadirect Xeon Gold 6414u |
$ 10,171 |
32 |
13062 |
RTX2000E AG |
75949 |
512 |
16 |
4 |
10 |
Row 1 – Cell 10 | Row 1 – Cell 11 | Row 1 – Cell 12 | Row 1 – Cell 13 |
? |
$ 20 |
Row 1 – Cell 16 |
$ 0.78 |
408 |
#Div/0! |
Titan W24 Octane W7-2495x |
$ 10,419 |
24 |
13470 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
8 |
0 |
10 |
527 |
229 |
540 |
65.03 |
? |
$ 20 |
8 |
$ 0.77 |
561 |
207 |
Nvidia digits |
$ 3,000 |
20 |
Row 3 – Cell 3 | Row 3 – Cell 4 | Row 3 – Cell 5 |
128 |
4 |
Row 3 – Cell 8 | Row 3 – Cell 9 |
40 |
135 |
89 |
0.48 |
1 |
$ 23 |
266 |
#Div/0! |
0 |
Row 3 – Cell 19 |
Lenovo P620 5965Wx |
$ 12,921 |
24 |
19935 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
4 |
0 |
1 |
440 |
165 |
460 |
33.40 |
24 |
$ 25 |
15 |
$ 0.65 |
831 |
597 |
Bizon G3000 W7-2595X |
$ 13,573 |
26 |
15738 |
RTX4000 AG |
261357 |
512 |
15 |
4 |
10 |
580 |
240 |
560 |
77.95 |
24.5 |
$ 27 |
7 |
$ 0.86 |
605 |
202 |
Apple Mac Studio Ultra |
$ 14,219 |
32 |
28485 |
80 |
126747 |
512 |
16 |
5 |
10 |
95 |
197 |
197 |
3.69 |
3.64 |
$ 28 |
139 |
$ 0.50 |
890 |
7726 |
PUGET 7970X |
$ 14,337 |
32 |
22977 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
16 |
3 |
10 |
546 |
239 |
475 |
61.93 |
? |
$ 28 |
8 |
$ 0.62 |
718 |
371 |
Dell precision 5860 w7-2595x |
$ 15,522 |
26 |
15738 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
8 |
4 |
10 |
418 |
177 |
452 |
33.44 |
21.7 |
$ 30 |
15 |
$ 0.99 |
605 |
471 |
THINKMATE 7975WX |
$ 15,781 |
32 |
24423 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
15 |
3 |
10 |
175 |
438 |
680 |
52.11 |
? |
$ 31 |
10 |
$ 0.65 |
763 |
469 |
Lenovo P5 W7-2595X |
$ 17,416 |
26 |
15738 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
8 |
0 |
1 |
440 |
165 |
453 |
32.89 |
19 |
$ 34 |
16 |
$ 1.11 |
605 |
479 |
Apple Mac Studio Max |
$ 5,899 |
16 |
26010 |
40 |
110342 |
128 |
8 |
5 |
10 |
95 |
197 |
197 |
3.69 |
2.74 |
$ 46 |
35 |
$ 0.23 |
1626 |
7055 |
HP G4 W7-2595X |
$ 24,643 |
26 |
15738 |
RTX2000 AG |
85825 |
512 |
8 |
4 |
10 |
386 |
169 |
445 |
29.03 |
10 |
$ 48 |
18 |
$ 1.57 |
605 |
542 |
Apple Mac Pro |
$ 11,799 |
24 |
21502 |
76 |
119712 |
192 |
8 |
4 |
10 |
529 |
218 |
450 |
51.89 |
17 |
$ 61 |
4 |
$ 0.55 |
896 |
414 |
Apple Mac Mini 4 Pro |
$ 4,699 |
14 |
22715 |
20 |
65512 |
64 |
8 |
5 |
10 |
50 |
127 |
127 |
0.81 |
0.73 |
$ 73 |
79 |
$ 0.21 |
1623 |
28167 |