My Mac Studio (Long-ish Term Review) 

just a note, a 16:9 4k monitor is markedly better for side by side windows

@@WeThrowPie Thanks for the info, Sir.

@@luisbperez368 no problem. I went from a 34" ultrawide to a 32" 4K and the 4K is better for everything I do. I do think the Ultrawide would be better for gaming and video editing. But if you don't do those things it's a beneficial move to go to 4K.

Yeah the Mac Studio is a $1400 RAM upgrade lol. I want 32GB dang it :/

@@WeThrowPie Sorry for the delay; I have a paper that had to be turned in last week, and I have a break now. I have a 32” 1440p on my Linux mini PC, which works for me. I am not a gamer; I only have a few old games on my PC, including Age of Empires, Warcraft (not the online game), Guild Wars, and MS Flight Simulator. My monitor setup for my Windows PC is a 27” 1080p, which is enough for me. I have tested the ultra-wide with the flight simulator, and boy did I love it, but the other games don't take advantage of the resolution. Since my Windows PC is a tiny minisforum is very easy to move from my gaming desk to my productivity desk 😂😂😂 plug and play. Stay safe 🙏

I tried to get info from Apple re connecting my Mac studio to my Cinema Display and also didn’t get the answers I needed. I scoured the web and RU-vid and found the exact adapter I needed to make it work. It works great. I still plan to get the studio display next year but I’m happy enough for now.

@@JaiSequoia This sounds great. I too, was able to find information only after a lot of looking ... located a You Tuber showing how to connect a cable called an "UpTab" which, has a mini display port on one end and on the other end is a USB 3.1 Type "C" connector. This provides video and, you then connect the Cinema display's USB "A" cable to one of the USB "A" ports on the Mac Studio and, with that you should be good to go (smile...smile).

El Fez, about how much space have you used up so far? I'm in a similar boat to you where I do creative work and I kept trying to convince myself that I could make 512 GB work in order to get the Studio quicker. I'm leaning towards 1 TB now and great to hear you're happy with your 1 TB decision.

@@lolfirepoisonftl Looking at my current storage . . . . I have about 400 customers in my system. Each one has at least one InDesign file (some have as many as a dozen or so) with their own graphic source files (PSD and AI stuff). And another 200 folders full of uploaded print projects which I try to remember to zip up for storage every few months on an external drive. And I'm also storing my music and movie archive on the Studio while I move archived stuff around between external drives. So a grand total of approximately 570 GB worth of (mostly) daily work files. I knew 512gb would be cutting it close for my workflow. Yes, I don't need the music and movie archive inside the box and I certainly have plenty of older files that could go to an external but the upfront price of the full TB internal is pretty much the same price as an NVMe + Thunderbolt enclosure with the same storage. I'm coming from a Trashcan MacPro so I took out the 1TB NVMe from there and put it into an Thunderbolt enclosure and it is equally (from a human perspective anyway) just as fast as the internal storage. Wrapping up my thoughts on internal vs. external, I would say you will be pretty much equal from a performance level, equal in price either way too. So the choice would come down to how long are you able to wait? Mine took just under 8 weeks from ordering (via B&H Photo) to landing on my doorstep. I had even called B&H to cancel my order so I could pick one up in-store (probably at Best Buy or online from Costco) when they told me it had literally came in that hour and was being forwarded to my address. Good Luck!

​@@2Chickaboom2 This is great and very helpful. Yeah I was considering the fast speed of the internal SSD against an external SSD in a Thunderbolt 3/4 enclosure and good to know there isn't a noticeable difference from a human perspective. I might get a Thunderbolt SSD in the future but I feel better about going with 1 TB for now. Thanks El Fez!

Ya. Your workflow would definitely be one where I’d advise having more internal storage. Especially considering how flaky Adobe can be when it comes to interacting with external storage for active projects.

you 5 out of a 100 scenarios

What cad program are you using? Are you using parallels or similar to run windows for your car software?

'It is really everything I could have asked for' Really? -Mac Studio cannot run Boot Camp and 100% Windows software compatibility -Mac Studio is terrible for gaming -there are few quality native M1 apps available -Mac Studio is sealed, non-servicable, non-upgradeable -even the cooling fan inside Mac Studio cannot be cleaned or accessed A Windows PC that costs *HALF* as much as Mac Studio is better in every way.

​@@DerekDavis213 Playing devil's advocate as someone who owns a custom built PC, but is still planning on buying the Mac Studio for music production: - Most people buying Macs aren't buying them to run windows. Want windows 10? Buy a PC. - Who cares? Again, people don't buy Macs to play games. Buy a PS5 or build a gaming PC if you want to play games. - This is flat out not true. For creative tasks (music production, photo and video editing, 3D rendering) and even non-creative ones like software dev, there are tons of native applications already. - Fair point. The non user serviceable aspect of most Apple products is a shame. For most people, this is not a deterrent since they aren't the type to troubleshoot issues and do DIY repairs anyway. They would just take it to the manufacturer to get it fixed anyway. - The fans can be accessed and cleaned, but it's a royal pain in the ass. I've been repairing electronics for years and it would still be a huge pain. - Nonsense; windows PCs are most certainly not "better in every way." My $2500 system with an i9-10900k is slower (for CPU tasks) than the Mac studio. The performance of M1 smacks the shit out of anything Intel makes, and when you factor in power efficiency (performance per watt) it's game over. These machines use a fraction of the power of a huge desktop gaming rig while being faster for all non-gaming applications. Personal side note: audio on windows is an absolute dumpster fire and a non-issue on MacOS. Looking forward to producing/mixing without having to deal with windows bullshit. Keep an open mind!

@@nate_creates Boot Camp has been a *valuable* *and* *cherished* part of the Mac for many years. Now that Apple has switched to a cell-phone processor (M1), all that wonderful Windows software is pretty much GONE. Also, many peripherals and accessories that work perfectly on Windows and Intel-based Macs are NOT working properly on the M1. Many of the M1 native applications (from Adobe for example) are NOT feature-complete. The Windows version has more features, and is much more stable and mature. Also, many plug-ins for Photoshop or Premiere will not work with the native M1 software. The fans CANNOT be accessed and cleaned, for 99.9% of Mac customers. Lets be real. I've watched videos of the Mac Studio being taken-apart, and it's major surgery even for electronic repair guys like you. You obviously overpaid for your $2500 i9-10900k system, and besides that is *OLD* technology. I'm talking about Mac Studio competitors today: Intel 12700K Intel 12900K Ryzen 5950x, 16 cores and 32 threads. Ryzen 5950x costs only $499. You say the performance of the Mac Studio mops the floor with Windows running a 12900K and NVidia 3090? Doing what? Final Cut? Or that ridiculous Geekbench benchmark that *nobody* *takes* *seriously* ? You know that video games are extremely popular in 2022, and even hard-core video editors or programmers or musicians like to play games after the work day is over. Mac Studio (with a cell phone processor) is terrible for gaming! How many top AAA games on Windows will run similarly well on the Mac Studio, with cell phone processor and weak gpu? VERY FEW!

@@DerekDavis213 Most of us don't need games or bootcamp. Apps always have to be updated by the companies that make them which takes a couple of weeks. Sealed, non-self serviceable, and non-upgradable -- so what? The cooling fan most certainly can be accessed and cleaned.

@@DerekDavis213 By the time you need to clean the fans, it's time for a new computer, anyway. Lifespan -- sometimes as little as 3 years.

I’m actually writing a video about what the Apple Silicon Mac Pro will need to be/should be. I’m not sure if the price will come down by much, but the price to performance will hopefully be WAY better than it currently is.

It seems to be the Quiizlab UH25. I have the OWC ministack STX which is lot more expensive but provides TB4/USB4 connection and hub.

It's a USB dock and storage enclosure by a company called qwiizlabs. It isn't thunderbolt quality, but its a good middle ground.

90% of the tasks? What about gaming? What about running Windows software via Boot Camp?

@@DerekDavis213 if you really need gaming or windows specific software. Mac isn't really your first choice in the first place.

@@xavhow What if you need a powerful computer at a good price? What if you will be doing a lot of work with Blender or Maya? What if you like to upgrade your computer with the latest *monster* video cards or processors? In all those cases, Mac would be a VERY bad choice. There's a good reason that Windows had 92% market share in 2021.

@@DerekDavis213 chill out. I was't even talking about Mac vs Windows. 90% being you know what Macs can do, 10% pro tasks.

@@xavhow Yes but you should be talking about Mac vs Windows. The current Macs, ridiculously overpriced, with M1 processor that comes from a cell phone, are HUGELY inferior to Windows machines. Windows has 92% market share. The whole world prefers Windows. The government, the military, Wall Street. They all prefer Windows.

I had that issue for a bit, but then I changed power adapters. I have a power strip with a usb power connection directly in it and I’ve had no issues since.

But won't you pay tons more for the laptop?

​@@letmebreakitdown2u152 It was a $1000 more. So I got the mobility and the screen. All in One. It's been a dream to take it with me everywhere and connect to my 3 monitors at my office

It’s kind of up to you. From what I’ve seen, the M2 platform is a somewhat minor improvement, but it is still going to be newer. Granted, 7 months for an Apple product aimed at pros isnt really that old. I don’t plan on changing mine out for many years. I think the upper tier M1 machines are great and will stay what way for a while.

Good to know. Thanks for sharing! Though that is quite the odd bug/hardware limit

I went with 1440p monitors and prioritized color accuracy. The ones I have aren’t made anymore, but Dell and LG’s color accuracy claims are pretty spot on when it comes to their higher end monitors. Also, window scaling hasn’t been much of an issue for me, but I know some programs can be weird about that in macOS. Either way, the Dell and LG options you listed are solid. I don’t have enough experience with Lenovo to really comment on them though.

@@GarrettCrespo thanks for getting back to me. Much appreciated. Yes the Lenovo too has a impressive stats, pre-calibrated accuracy, a dual wide colour gamut (99.1% DCI-P3 and 99.5% Adobe RGB), and a VESA DisplayHDR 400 support. Ah OK you have 1440p ones. I imagine that you wouldn't be running scaling as no need, which is what I'm thinking might be the best. Just hope I don't miss the 4K playback.

No problems. Also, if you’re talking about 4K playback in your editing tool, that’s usually not an issue if you’re editing in one screen because the playback window is smaller anyway. Playback after the export would be the only drawback, but I haven’t had an issue with it.

@@GarrettCrespo yeah that's right Garrett. It's the full screen playback after export.

So, I work from external storage almost exclusively. So 512GB of storage was enough from me. If you want to work off of internal storage, upgrading the storage may be something you’d want to do.

@@GarrettCrespo thank you for the advise 👍

I think the Mac Studio would definitely work well for that. Even the base M1 Max hurries the performance of the Core i5 cpu. Basically going from 4 cores to 10 cores.

I think the surprising performance of M1 made people forget that the MacBook Air isn’t intended to be a high-powered productivity laptop. If you are a professional, doing professional work, and your computer is a key part of that-there is another device for you. The MBA is for business analysts and executive team types who spend most of their time doing email and maybe a spreadsheet or two. Oh, and the general populace, whose computing needs rarely exceed that which could be provided by a $20 Raspberry Pi.

The reason that I recommend the M1 Mac mini for day to day is because it WILL handle day to day now and well into the future. Mine handled fairly intense tasks that most people will never ask of it! However, the Mac Studio will handle intense work now and well into the future. Both are great for now and the future, but the Mac minis are more about day to day task for a long time and the Mac studio is more about heavy workloads now and into the future.

Something being more powerful now doesn't mean it will last longer. For example, lets say m3 has better hardware raytracing support and games start taking advantage of that more and well now you're superpowered machine is still out of date. Now, to be fair, I think phones have suffered more from this, since they were for a good while barely able to keep up with the internet sometimes. But as long as we are talking about more powerful devices, I think you hit a point of diminishing returns real fast when it comes to future proofing, but it all depends on what you do.

Who keeps a computer for 7 years? Every 2 or 3 years, sell the old computer and then buy something MUCH faster.

@@DerekDavis213 I keep mine for a good while. The transition process to a new computer isn’t always easy on my work programs, some of them are pickier than others about migrating to new systems etc. On top of that, I can honestly say in the last several years the speed gains just haven’t been there. My hackintosh build is probably 5-7 years old and my mac pro before that was around the same. The jump between them was less than you’d think for my work, though there was an improvement. The biggest benefits seem to be graphics cards, which gained a lot of you take advantage of Ray Tracing etc. Music software is still a bit all over the place when it comes to multi threading, so I suspect a lot of my bottleneck is software just as much as it is hardware sometimes. Multithreading performance is much better than what it was 12 years ago, even on an old computer. So a lot of the benefits I see I’d also see on my older system in some cases, but it depends greatly on the project / session itself.

@@bubblepipemedia3414 'the last several years the speed gains just haven’t been there' In the Windows PC world, there have been huge gains: 12th-generation Intel Alder Lake processors, and Ryzen 5000-series processors. Also, SSD drives that now run at up to 7500 megabytes/second. Which is important when video editing large 4k or 6k files. And Apple turned their back on all that, and went with a processor from a cell phone (M1). M1 also cannot run Boot Camp with 100% Windows software compatibility. That is a HUGE loss for Mac customers.

You can build a PC for $3200 that is better than your Mac studio.

@@eprpop at the time i ordered it, it was hard to find a laptop that would beat it. Portability means a lot to me as I’ll be using it when traveling. Though switching to mac os, i find myself missing basic features, the new ones i have gained, I’m really liking.

'I think It's faster than my Alienware 10th gen i9 with a 2080 Super' It's not faster for gaming. Mac Studio with ARM chip is terrible for gaming. If you compare 12th-gen i9 (or Ryzen 5950x) vs Mac Studio, the Windows machine will utterly defeat the Mac, and for about *HALF* the price.

@@DerekDavis213 i don’t game on computers, i use it for video and photo editing. To play games i use my xbox and oculus.

@@SHIFT-ED Mac Studio is great for video editing. But Mac Studio is bad for 3D modeling (Blender or Maya). Mac Studio cannot run Boot Camp with 100% Windows software compatibility. That's a huge loss for Mac customers. Mac Studio cannot be upgraded, repaired, or serviced. Even the cooling fan is inaccessible. At some point, that fan will be choked with dust. M1 Macs have all sorts of compatibility issues and limitations, especially when running plug-ins for Adobe Premiere or Photoshop. Windows has 90% market share. Intel-based Macs have 6% market share. M1 Macs have a tiny 3% market share. It's no wonder that many professional software apps are not being optimized for M1. The market is just too small.

It really depends. For actual “single core” tasks, no. This is because the cores are literally the same on both chips. The big difference is in the number of cores. If the everyday tasks you’re referring to benefit from multi core chips, then possibly because the Mac mini has double the efficiency cores of the Mac Studio.

They say that Logic Pro has all kinds of issues with Mac Studio.

Yes. There is a function called Target Display Mode. If you connect a newer machine via thunderbolt or display port and put the iMac in that mode, they will use it as a monitor

@@GarrettCrespo Thanks Garrett, be certain to follow you.

I totally forgot to add that card. Here’s the video about it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qCZnqLU3pkU.html

RAM and storage (maybe GPU on the M1 Max) would make sense. I think that the M1 Ultra is overkill even for a long term investment. Unless your workflow involves a lot of heavy tasks, that chip will easily still be overkill 12+ years from now. And by then you run the risk of Apple killing support for it. I’d say that the top M1 Max and extra ram and storage would be the best option for light to medium use over the long term. Even my fairly heavy use for the base M1 Max is handled with ease. It’s your call at the end of the day, but that’s just my thought on it.

Thanks, appreciate your advice.

I ran two monitors of the M1 Mac mini. Dual 1440p monitors. One off of HDMI and the other off of USB C.

@@GarrettCrespo I currently run 3 monitors and a tv off my 5,1 Mac Pro.

Gotcha. Ya, three monitors would need more than the M1

Pray to God, and He will prevent you from making a serious mistake (buying the Studio).

@@DerekDavis213 I'll pray for the M2 Studio :D

@@Cryptolorian Keep praying, while Windows people enjoy amazing power, at reasonable prices. Tim Cook luvs guys like you.

@@DerekDavis213 I have an i7-8700 Desktop PC, a ThinkPad T14, a ThinkPad T470, an Intel NUCi58BEH... so basically I have plenty of Windows machines, but I need that arm M2 chip, I need to feel it's power efficiency, it's coolness, it's raw power. I need it all. I don't believe in Adam and Steve, only Adam and Eve, but Timmy-Nina can take my money. I refuse to fund Armani and Versace though!

Me too brother ... did you end up getting one? I haven't had a functional computer in a few years and I had a dream (I'm convinced from the Lord) that I need to make music for His glory ... I'm opting for this I decided ... Funny I should see you here! God bless! In Jesus' mighty name!

@@Limlani nope. But it’s coming.

I agree. But there are probably only so many aesthetic “compromises” Apple will do. I wish it was there, but the ports are a start!

It can be, but you’ll be running through Rosetta 2 at the moment and you’ll be missing features like hardware accelerated ray tracing.

I see what you’re saying, but this is actually a practice that’s existed in the industry for decades. Intel does the exact same thing for their main Core chips. One wafer is made and the i9, i7, i5, and i3 chips are all cut from it based on the quality of the silicon yield. I have no problem with Apple doing the same considering it allows them to offer a varied price range.

May have rounded up for the nice even number. I’ve been doing a lot with this thing. Lol

Depending on how heavy, you may want to consider a bump up to the M1 Ultra or waiting for the Mac Pro whenever that gets the Apple silicon treatment.

Good to know. I’ll try to specify USD when talking about currency in my future videos. Thanks!

@@GarrettCrespo No need to specify, just pointing out how we get ripped off this side.

This isn’t the first comment to say that and it won’t be the last. It is what it is.

Ok boomer. haha

Wow. Out come the personal attacks. What this has to do with the subjects under discussion is a mystery. If you don’t like personal choices of a reviewer, don’t watch the channel. If you feel that way, why are you here and making negative comments? Does it fulfill some need to feel superior?

lulz

That’s why I also brought up the fact that real world use is more suited for the M1 Mac mini. I do try to focus on general use for some videos, but videos about performance have to come from what I’m super familiar with. But I get it. It can get pretty boring when RU-vidrs all bring up the same points.

@@GarrettCrespo Don't get me wrong, it is a nice review, but all I see is a hundreds of reviews of Studio for video editing. But most of us are generic users, who want to have a fast computer. I think, some of reviewers could benefit, by doing separate reviews for generic users. We want speed in everyday operations, we want many displays and we do run some virtualisation so doi need some memory.

@@teaearlgrayh0t Noted. Thanks for the constructive input!

@@teaearlgrayh0t A generic user who desires a fast computer and doesn't run Final Cut should just *avoid* the Mac entirely. A very fast Windows PC is much cheaper, and much more capable than any Mac. Especially a Mac with M1 processor, which comes from a cell phone.

@@DerekDavis213 Poor power management and horrific sound. Non-existent resale value. No, thank you.