Apple Mac Studio not just a stack of Mac Minis in a trenchcoat

Yesterday, Apple announced its first new model of Mac in years: the Mac Studio. About the size of three stacked Mac Minis, it echoes the handsome but underpowered Mac Cube of yore, but with all the benefits of modern performance and power management. Inside it is the company's new processor, the M1 Ultra, for which claimed performance matches an Intel i9-12900 CPU with an Nvidia RTX 3090—as good as it gets, really, and with far less power usage. The closest PC equivalent might be a high-end Intel NUC or Zotac Magnus.

The Studio comes in two basic forms: a $2000 model with the M1 Max chip, 32Gb of RAM and a 512Gb SSD, and the $4,000 M1 Ultra model, which comes with 64Gb of RAM and 1Tb SSD. The pricing seems quite reasonable given the specifications—the PC equivalents are only a little cheaper when similarly specced. The $1000-ish "M1/M1 Pro 16Gb" model you might be dreaming of is likely coming soon in the form of a new Mac Mini.

Two USB-C ports, one SDXC card slot (thank you!), four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, one 10Gb Ethernet port, and one 3.5 mm headphone jack.

Accompanying it is a new 27" 5K display with the same silvery, squared-off look—something Apple users have been hankering for for years, though the $1,600 price tag is something to think about. It's got better specifications than other 5K models, though, such as the aging-yet-still $1300 LG UltraFine that's currently perched in Apple Stores worldwide.

Also announced? The iPhone 13 in green. Tempting!