At a press event on Tuesday at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple unveiled a new piece of hardware called the Mac Studio, complete with a desktop-class M1 Ultra chip. The event wasn’t just about a new desktop computer designed for creative professionals and the world’s most powerful consumer SoC that powers it, it was a reminder that Apple’s transition from Intel to its in-house custom chips is nearly complete.
This once again puts emphasis that Apple can not only outgrow the entire PC industry without Intel’s help, but has the capability to lead the chipmaking industry.
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A look at how the M1 Ultra chip and Mac Studio desktop computer with Studio Display could reshape the PC industry and establish Apple in a league of its own.
M1 Ultra delivers workstation-level performance
When Apple unveiled the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, everybody thought Cupertino was done with M1 chips. But they were wrong. The fourth and final member in the M1 chip family of Apple’s custom SoCs, the M1 Ultra, is designed to power desktops. The Mac Studio is the first desktop computer (more on that later) to power the M1 Ultra, which according to Apple combines two M1 Max dies into a single chip package to create a super chip via a high-speed interconnect.
This approach is nothing new. AMD has implemented the same technique in Ryzen Threadripper chips in the past. But fusing dies together can result in inefficiencies. To address this issue, Apple is using a technique called UltraFusion for scaling up processing performance, which doesn’t have the same trade-offs by connecting two chips up to a motherboard. Instead, UltraFusion uses a “silicon interposer that connects the chips across more than 10,0000 signals,” Apple says.
The M1 Ultra chip uses 20 CPU cores, split between 16 high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. That’s a drastic increase over the M1 Max and M1 Pro chips, both of which have just 10 CPU cores, eight of them dedicated to high performance and two to efficiency. The new chip also has 64 graphics cores, double the amount of the M1 Max and quadruple the amount of the M1 Pro. The M1 Ultra supports up to 128GB of high-bandwidth, low-latency unified memory, powering up to 32-core Neural Engine to deliver maximum performance for artists, developers, and video professionals who would greatly benefit from 3D-rendering tools, advanced coding and video rendering software.
Mac Studio is a new type of desktop computer
To showcase the capabilities of the M1 Ultra chip, Apple launched a brand new desktop computer which many thought would be a high-end Mac mini. However, in reality, the Mac Studio is a new type of desktop computer aimed at video editors, scientists and graphic designers. This isn’t a Mac Pro replacement, a high-end Mac desktop computer that remains the final computer that Apple still sells with an Intel chip inside. Apple has already clarified that a new Mac Pro is coming, though details have been kept under wraps. The new Mac Studio and Studio Display “join the rest of our incredible Mac lineup with Apple Silicon, making our transition nearly complete with just one more product to go, Mac Pro,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. “But that is for another day.”
That’s for sure. The Mac Studio isn’t replacing either the Intel-powered Mac mini or the existing Mac Pro. But what exactly is the Mac Studio? It isn’t a mini-tower, it’s like having two Mac minis stacked on top of each other. The computer has a cube-like shape that stands 3.7 inches tall and measures about 8 inches on each side. The closest computer Apple has ever made that resembles the Mac Studio is the Power Mac G4 Cube, which came with a clear plastic case and looked like it was floating in midair. The Mac Studio is compact enough to place on your desk or under a display. It also comes with a ton of ports, including two USB-C ports and an SD card slot on the front, along with four Thunderbolt ports, two USB-A slots, an HDMI port, a 10 GB Ethernet port, and a headphone jack on the back. During the launch, Apple highlighted the Mac Studio’s thermal design, which helps keep the internal components cool.
The Studio is available with Apple’s two most powerful processors: the M1 Max (which also powers the new MacBook Pros), and the all-new M1 Ultra, which specifically targets consumers with demanding computing tasks.
“It’s the first computer to put outrageous performance, extensive connectivity and entirely new capabilities into an unbelievably compact form that lives right on your desk where it’s always within easy reach,” said Colleen Novielli, product line manager, Mac, during Apple’s ‘Peek Performance’ event.
“When you compare Mac Studio to our most powerful Mac desktops, the 27-inch iMac and Mac Pro, it takes performance to astonishing new heights,” she continued. “For CPU performance, Mac Studio with M1 Max is up to 2.5 times faster than the fastest 27-inch iMac – and up to 50% faster than a Mac Pro with 16-core Xeon processor.”
“[Then] CPU performance on Mac Studio with M1 Ultra is up to 3.8 times faster than the fastest 27-inch iMac,” said Novielli, “and it’s up to 90% faster than the Mac Pro with 16 cores. We can even compare Mac Studio with M1 Ultra to the Mac Pro with 28 cores – it’s up to 60% faster.”
Buying the Mac Studio isn’t going to be cheap. The configuration with the M1 Ultra starts at Rs 389,900, almost double the price of the entry-level model that costs Rs 189,900 but comes with the M1 Max chip. But a device like this which is aimed at professional users always cost on a higher side.
The Mac Studio can connect to any monitor of choice, but Apple is launching a monitor that complements the desktop. The 27-inch monitor has 5K resolution and features a 12-megapixel webcam as well as the Center Stage feature that keeps you centered in the frame on video calls, a six-speaker sound system that supports spatial audio and Dolby Atmos playback, a three-microphone array, and four force-cancelling woofers, three USB-C ports and a Thunderbolt port. The A13 Bionic, the chip that powers the video and audio systems on the Studio Display, powers the Studio Display. The high-end display will set you back Rs 159,900.
Apple’s chip development and hardware teams are unique
Apple’s Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip shows that the company’s chip development team, as well as the hardware, is unrivalled. Tuesday’s event puts focus back on consumer desktop computers that are almost forgotten. For many, the Mac Studio is a pricey Apple product which it is, but when combined with the M1 Ultra chip makes it the most powerful desktop computer in the world.
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Explained: Why Apple’s Mac Studio PC with M1 Ultra chip puts Cupertino giant in a league of its own - The Indian Express
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