The new Studio Display received mostly mixed reviews, while some were unconvinced, to say the least. The limitation on RAM and SSD size is also rather underwhelming. Everything is installed firmly onto the board, which is a steady move away from the Mac Pro into the consumer realm. To make matters worse, there is a distinct lack of the upgradability and modularity that we are used to. As it turns out, the first benchmarks have discovered this is not comparable and a discrete GPU is still far more powerful. At Apple’s Peek Performance event, the Mac Studio’s GPU was compared to Nvidia’s flagship RTX 3090. There are however a few things that annoy us slightly. When compared to an equivalent desktop PC, energy savings were around a thousand kilowatt-hours per year! M1 Ultra Mac Studio: How Ultra is it?

In addition, Spender found the energy efficiency of the Mac Studio to be considerable. Opening pro apps like DAW systems or calling up your projects happens almost instantly. The close to silent fan system means you can position microphones close by, without the risk of noise on recordings. With the capability to export 30 GB of 4K ProRes video in only 24 seconds, it’s not surprising. The Mac Studio has also made a good impression on YouTubers like Mary Spender.

Mac mini vs imac for recording