Apple’s “Peek Performance” event in March 2022 came with the surprise launch of a new product called the Mac Studio. While many were expecting the launch of new MacBooks with an M2 chip, Apple took us by surprise by taking the M1’s capabilities to a whole new level inside the Mac Studio.
The Mac Studio is for the professionals who wanted a more powerful Mac mini, but now that it’s here, is it worth the extra price? And what do you get for all that money? Here, we’ll pit the Mac Studio against the Mac mini to see if it’s the perfect machine for you.
CPU Performance
Apple<\/a>"">The Mac mini was one of the first Macs to sport Apple’s breakthrough M1 chip, and it revolutionalized the small-form-factor desktop market. As much as we loved the compact machine, the Mac mini started to fall behind once Apple came out with more powerful chips like the M1 Pro and M1 Max, featured in the 2021 MacBook Pro models.
Fortunately, Apple has taken the capabilities of the M1 chip even further by interconnecting two M1 Max chips to pave the way for a new M1 Ultra chip. Thanks to Apple’s UltraFusion architecture, these interconnected chips behave like a single unit to software. Performance-wise, the M1 Ultra is just as good as you’d expect.
The M1 chip that powers the Mac mini is an 8-core CPU, but you can configure the Mac Studio with either the 10-core M1 Max or the 20-core M1 Ultra. The base Mac Studio with the M1 Max delivers 70 percent faster CPU performance than the Mac mini. While Apple hasn’t compared the M1 Ultra to the standard M1, you can expect the high-end Mac Studio to deliver twice the CPU performance of the base model.
Now, you need to ask yourself if the applications you use will take advantage of the extra cores on the M1 Max and the M1 Ultra. If you’re planning to do light video editing and photo editing, the M1 Mac mini is good enough. However, if you intend to do a lot of rendering work with your machine, the Mac Studio’s CPU prowess is worth the extra money.
GPU Performance
Apple<\/a>"">If graphics performance is a big deal for you, the Mac Studio is the obvious choice—provided you’re willing to pay the premium tag. Once again, this will depend on whether you’re configuring the machine with the M1 Max or the M1 Ultra.
According to Apple, the M1 Max in the base Mac Studio delivers similar GPU performance to the RTX 3060 while consuming a third of the power, whereas the M1 Ultra offers comparable performance to the RTX 3090 while consuming 200W less power. Now, let’s compare this performance to the standard M1 chip in the Mac mini.
The M1 Max delivers four times the GPU performance as the standard M1 in the Mac mini, whereas the M1 Ultra is eight times as fast. These are awe-inspiring numbers for sure, but if you’re not going to take advantage of the extra performance, the M1 Ultra is not worth the money. That said, the base Mac Studio with the M1 Max chip would be the perfect middle-ground for most professionals.
RAM
While the base model M1 Mac mini comes with 8GB of unified memory, you can take a step up and configure it with 16GB of RAM. This would be beneficial if you tend to run a lot of programs in the background.
The good news for prospective Mac Studio buyers is that you won’t have to worry about running short of memory, as the base variant has 32GB of unified memory. But if you think you’re a productive power user and you need more, you can go all out and configure it with up to 128GB of unified memory along with the M1 Ultra.
Ports and Connectivity
Apple<\/a>"">Both the Mac Studio and the Mac mini have enough USB ports for most people, but one of them is jam-packed with high-speed ports. If transfer speed is a top priority, you should be leaning towards the Mac Studio.
The M1 Mac mini sports two USB 4 ports and two USB-A ports, but the biggest takeaway is that the USB 4 ports support the older Thunderbolt 3 standard. On the other hand, the base model Mac Studio packs four Thunderbolt 4-enabled USB 4 ports, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports. And if you opt for the M1 Ultra variant, you get six Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports.
You also get HDMI and Ethernet ports with both machines. However, the Mac mini only supports Gigabit LAN, whereas the more expensive Mac Studio supports 10-Gigabit speeds. Additionally, the Mac Studio offers an SDXC card slot for you to transfer photos and videos conveniently.
You can hook up the Mac mini to a 6K ProDisplay XDR and another 4K monitor simultaneously. But if you can afford the Mac Studio, you can connect it to four 6K displays and another 4K monitor, all at the same time, for an insane desk setup.
As for wireless connectivity, they’re pretty much the same, with both machines supporting Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 technologies.
Design
Apple<\/a>"">The Mac mini and the Mac Studio have a similar footprint, and therefore, they’ll take the same amount of space on your desk. However, the more powerful Mac Studio is taller than two Mac minis stacked on top of each other. As a result, the Mac mini is easier to carry around and wins in the portability department.
Internally, the Mac mini has a single-fan setup to cool down its M1 chip, and honestly, it does a pretty good job when it comes to thermals. To match the M1 Max or M1 Ultra’s performance, the Mac Studio is equipped with a dual-fan setup with air intake at the bottom and perforations at the back to push out hot air.
Regardless, whether you go with the Mac mini or the Mac Studio, you won’t have to worry about overheating issues like many of the Intel-based small-form-factor PCs.
Price
Apple<\/a>"">In the end, it all comes down to the price. Sure, the Mac mini delivers a fraction of the performance of the Mac Studio, but at the same time, you only need to pay a fraction of its price.
The M1 Mac mini starts at just $699 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. In comparison, the Mac Studio starts at $1,999 for the base M1 Max variant with 32GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, making it almost three times as expensive as Apple’s most affordable desktop computer. And we’re not done yet.
The M1 Ultra model of the Mac Studio starts at a whopping $3,999, and if you want to go all-out with the 64-core GPU, you’ll need to pay an extra grand. The Mac Studio falls in a completely different category at this price point and is not really comparable to the Mac mini. You may as well pit it against the Intel-based Mac Pro.
The Powerful Mac Studio Isn’t for Everybody
As much as we could go on and on about the Mac Studio’s performance, we find it hard to recommend for most people. It’s a machine that targets professionals; someone who is eyeing up the iMac Pro should seriously consider investing in this portable powerhouse.
For the average user, the Mac mini is perfectly capable of handling almost any task you throw at it. But if you really need some extra juice or you want a more future-proofed desktop, the base Mac Studio with the M1 Max chip is hard to beat for its price.
