The M2 Max and Ultra Mac Studio were released at more than a year ago at WWDC23, and the M4 era of Apple’s System on a Chip has already started. So it’s time to start looking forward to the next Mac Studio. But just how long will we have to wait for the new Mac Studio? We’ll keep track of what’s being said in this article.
Update March 4, 2025: A new Mac Studio could be released this week.
M4 Mac Studio: Release date
We’ve had two generations of Mac Studio. The first gen (M1 Max and Ultra) was released in March of 2022. The second-gen (M2 Max and Ultra) was revealed at WWDC23 in June 2023. Apple will probably continue with a March or June timeframe for the next Mac Studio. WWDC25 was though to be the likely venue, but now a report is suggesting we could see the new Mac Studio as early as March 5, with the release said to be “imminent”.
The next Max and Ultra Mac Studio could be released in 2025.
Roman Loyola/IDG
Back in April 2024, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shad aid in the paid version of his Power On newsletter that the next Mac Studio could launch in the second half of 2024, which at the time pointed to a June 2024 release at WWDC. However, the promise of an imminent update didn’t last long and a month later, in May 2024, Gurman reported that the Mac Studio was not on the schedule of Apple releases for 2024.
At that time, Gurman claimed it wouldn’t appear until mid-2025. Gurman reiterated this in June 2024 when he reported that the M4 Mac Studio is not expected until the second half of 2025. Gurman repeated this claim that the new Mac Studio will ship in 2025 again in August 2024.
In October, Gurman reported that the new Mac Studio had originally had a similar release schedule as the M4 MacBook Air, with a release planned between January and March of 2025. But Apple has decided to push the Mac Studio back to a release between March and June.
However, it would seem that Apple has addressed the hold up, because, in March 4, 2025, Gurman posted that a new Mac Studio is “imminent.”
M4 Mac Studio: Price
No reports on the price for the next-gen Mac Studio have been made. Here are the standard configuration prices of the current M2 Mac Studio lineup, for reference.
- $1,999/£2,099: M2 Max with a 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB unified memory, 512GB SSD
- $3,999/ £4,199: M2 Ultra with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 64GB unified memory, 1TB SSD
The price is unlikely to change in the U.S., but we anticipate that the new Mac Studio will be less than it is currently in the U.K. The original Mac Studio was £1,999 in the U.K. when it launched, Apple then pushed up the price to £2,099 with the arrival of the M2-powered model. Since then fluctuations in economies around the world likely mean that the U.K. price will return to £1,999, as this is how Apple has aligned other prices.
M4 Mac Studio: Design
The Mac mini had a redesign when Apple introduced the M4 and M4 Pro versions, but no reports about design changes to the Mac Studio have been made. The current design works well so Apple likely won’t change it. The only possible exception is a new space black color option to match the MacBook Pro.
M4 Mac Studio: Specs and features
The main (and likely only) change that will happen with the upcoming Mac Studio is with its SoC. The Mac Studio should continue to have the Max and Ultra versions of its M-series chips, so the new chips we will see are likely to be the M4 Max and M4 Ultra.
We already know what to expect from the M4 Max as it has launched in the MacBook Pro.
The ports on the Mac Studio will likely remain unchanged.
Roman Loyola/IDG
Apple’s Ultra chips are likely to combine two M4 Max chips to offer double the CPU and GPU cores. The M4 chip is already very impressive, in fact, in our Geekbench tests the M4 Max beat the M2 Ultra. Read: How Apple’s M4 chips dispelled all my fears about buying a new Mac. When the M4 Ultra launches you can expect something exceedingly fast and powerful.
Apple could have even more up its sleeves. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has stated that Apple is working on AI-enhanced M4 chips that could find their way into the Mac Studio in 2025.
However, on March 4, 2025, Gurman posted that the new Mac Studio could use an M4 Max and an M3 Ultra, not an M4 Ultra. It seems like an odd thing to do, though the M3 Ultra will be faster than an M4 Max, but the difference will be smaller than if it were an M4 Ultra.
Why wouldn’t Apple just go with an M4 Ultra? Perhaps there are manufacturing issues. Or perhaps Apple wants to create separation between the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro, which is rumored to have the M4 Ultra. Read all about the rumors of the M4 Mac Studio and the M4 Ultra Mac Pro.
Another major upgrade to expect is Thunderbolt 5 implementation, an upgrade from Thunderbolt 4 in the current Mac Studio. With the M4 Pro/Max MacBook Pro, Apple implemented Thunderbolt 5, so it will happen with the new Mac Studio. Learn more about Thunderbolt 5.
The other features of the Mac Studio should remain the same. That means no changes to the ports, connectivity, speaker, SSD sizes, or display support.