discountopinion said:

M3Ultra instead of M4Ultra is likely due to Apple being hard at work during 2024 to make that happen and would have had to start over if skipping directly to M4Ultra.

Hopefully any lessons learned with M3Ultra can help accelerate M4Ultra.

They obviously had to reengineer the Thunderbolt controller for Thunderbolt 5 on the M3 Max, but the interconnect may be something that is much harder to insert into the SoC architecture - otherwise they would've probably made a M4 Ultra.

gwmac said:

9secondkox2 said:

gwmac said:

This is what I and a lot of other 27 inch iMac owners have been waiting on.  My only remaining decision is what monitor to buy. I want to get at least a 32 inch so was considering the

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor - U3225QE

Does this seem like a good monitor to pair with my new studio? I get a $200 Dell credit every 6 months with my Amex Business Platinum card so that will knock it down to $749. 

Nah. We've been waiting on a new 32" iMac.

That would be my preference but the chances of that are slim to none at this point. I would have been happy with a M4 iMac 27" but that also doesn't seem to be in the cards. My advice is just get a new studio like the rest of us. 

I'm willing to part with some cash to separate the monitor from the computer.

I'll be replacing a 2017 iMac 5K with a 2020 iMac 5K for the family, and this will be the second perfectly good 5K display I'll have to abandon due to the associated compute hardware being obsolete.

HandsomeSmitty said:

Wow, the balls on Apple, continuing their bait and switch tactics with limited memory options for low-end Max chip on the studio. Crazy criminal!

Who knows?

Maybe some of the high order address lines were damaged in the fab process for a lot of the defective (binned) chips.

They'd almost certainly want to sell their astronomically priced unified memory if they could.

Zirlin said:

Apple has a huge problem. Their naming and numbering scheme is an absolute mess. Paying double the money for a MacStudio with an M3 instead of an M4 sounds like you're getting something less but paying more. And having to understand the differences between Max and Ultra and Pro is insane. Also, why I'm on a rant, there is literally zero point anymore to upgrading an iPad past an M1 until they allow it to run MacOS simultaneously. All the same hardware is there. If we can figure out how a Nintendo Switch works (portable vs. docked), I'm pretty sure we can figure out the same thing with our iPad doubling as a laptop. Streamline the product line.

Apple's already hinted that not every Apple Silicon line will have a Ultra - they probably just don't sell enough of them to expend the engineering effort for every generation.

I actually have an 11" iPad Pro M4 (binned) just for the single core speed - it was the fastest browser in my quiver simply because of the M4's single core speed.

The Nintendo Switch is just a display/power interface - and the mechanics of getting a USB-C port to blind dock are a bit mind blowing. I believe all the video hardware is inboard on the Switch - and it's not really a super duper performer in any case.

rob53 said:

I agree but there's no M4 Pro iMac of any size and I doubt Apple will make one. Apple seems to be pushing laptops and iPads, not desktops, so the only way we're going to get a 27" or more 5K iMac is if we buy a Mac mini M4 Pro or the Mac Studio combining it with as good of a display as we can find. 

We're looking at $4600 for a fully blown Mac mini M4 Pro. 14/20/16, 64GB/8TB, +$100 for 10G ethernet if desired.

Same specs on the Mac Studio would cost $5099, 14/40/16, 64GB/8TB. Had to go with better SoC to get 64GB memory.
--So these configurations cost about the same but the Studio has a lot more headroom for better specs. Are the M4 Pro mini specs enough for most of you/us? They totally destroy anything Apple made with the Intel chip, including my fully blown 2019 iMac.

The 2020 iMac 5K with core-i9 (10c, 20t) and AMD Radeon 5700/XT with 16 GB VRAM and 10g ethernet - my currently daily driver - was the most powerful intel machine Apple made; heck, I bought it after the M1 was announced to tide me over while Apple smoothed over the Apple Silicon transition.

The Mac Studio with the unbinned M4 Max has over three times the CPU power and over six times the graphics power (and supports ray tracing and Apple Intelligence); combine that with a Studio Display and you have a capable replacement for the 2020 iMac 5K with some granularity - you can replace the Mac Studio without having to rebuy the display - though I can't really see my workload overpowering the M4 Max, except maybe for stuff like Topaz Video AI which will probably always eat as much resources as available.