Last year, Apple unveiled the first Macs with the M4 chip: the MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini. That’s about half of the Mac lineup, leaving the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. Among the two remaining desktops, the Mac Studio is definitely the more popular one – though it’s a bit outdated, still sporting the M2 Max and M2 Ultra. Here’s everything we’re expecting with the next Mac Studio, though it is a bit light.
Faster connectivity
With the M4 Pro Mac mini, as well as the higher end MacBook Pros, Apple introduced Thunderbolt 5 – allowing for speeds of up to 120Gb/s, triple the theoretical maximum of Thunderbolt 4. Apple will likely introduce Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac Studio as well.
Here’s how Apple describes Thunderbolt 5:
MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max features Thunderbolt 5 ports that more than double transfer speeds up to 120 Gb/s, enabling faster external storage, expansion chassis, and powerful docking and hub solutions. For example, by connecting just a single cable, pros like music producers can now light up their entire studio.
Apple might also introduce support for Wi-Fi 7, like they did on the iPhone 16 lineup. However, they didn’t do this on the first round of M4 Macs for some reason, so it’s a little bit more questionable.
Wi-Fi 7 supports speeds of up to 46 Gbps, which is over five times faster than Wi-Fi 6E’s 9 Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 also operates on 320 MHz channels and supports the 6 GHz band, widely reducing interference and signal congestion.
M4 Max and M4 Ultra chips
Apple already introduced the M4 Max chip in the new MacBook Pro, and it’s currently one of the fastest chips on the market. It sports a 16 core CPU and 40 core GPU, which means a theoretical M4 Ultra would be around double that – with a 32 core CPU and 80 core GPU, thanks to Apple’s UltraFusion technology.
M4 Pro Mac mini is currently the fastest desktop Mac, while also being the smallest computer Apple has ever made. However, once the new Mac Studio is out, that’ll no longer be the case.
Release date
Top comment by Think Different
Game consoles have the one feature that the Studio most needs and won't get: A slot for expandable SSD storage. Both the PS5 and Xbox 1X have SSD slots. The PS5 has room for a full M.2 while the Xbox has a slot in front that allows you to insert a SSD. Of the two, the Xbox solution is the best for future Macs. These are not hot swappable so Apple may wish to implement a locking mechanism but Apple could likely fit between two and four slots if they wanted to on the front or back of a Mac Studio.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the new Mac Studio should be unveiled within the first half of the year, likely in the late spring, or possibly at WWDC25:
During the first half of the year, Apple is aiming to refresh the Mac Studio, its mid-tier, headless desktop computer. This will help restore order to the Mac lineup. The Mac mini recently got an M4 Pro chip that bests the Mac Studio’s M2 Ultra processor in some scenarios and benchmarks. So Apple needs to get the higher-end Studio model back on track with the speedier M4 Max and M4 Ultra chips.
Are you excited for the next Mac Studio? Let us know in the comments below.
My favorite Mac accessories on Amazon:
- UGREEN 6.6ft braided USB-C charging cables, 2-pack
- AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C)
- Ergonomic MacBook Stand for your desk
- Anker 140W 4 port charger with cable
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