Review Mac Studio Review: M2 Ultra Powers a Small Workstation Wonder

[bit_user]

This review unfortunately makes the Mac Studio look more reasonably priced than it really is, by limiting its comparisons to only two of the most expensive CPUs made by AMD and Intel. This allowed the author to conclude that as much or even more money would need to be spent building an AMD or Intel system with equal performance - which is completely false.

The truth is that for a little over $1,000, you can build a PC using for example the AMD 7950x that will out-perform the Apple M2 Ultra in Cinebench R23 or other CPU benchmarks. As for GPU performance in Blender, even first-gen Nvidia RTX cards have no problem equaling or beating the Apple M2 Max; and a modern 4080 will beat the M2 Ultra. So for around $2,000 total you can easily build a PC that will out-perform Apple's $4,000 - $6,000 Mac Studio configurations.

Yes, its price cannot be justified on the basis of its performance. You must either have a need (i.e. using or developing Apple-specific software) or a strong desire to use a Mac. At that point, price only matters in so far as it needs to be within your budget.

Apple's traditional weakness has been how much its products cost, relative to comparable PC and Androids.

 

[bit_user]

I'm still not sure how a $4k workstation that cannot be repaired onsite has any place in a business.

Okay, I have a live example.

The machine: Dell Precision laptop. I forget the exact model number but it's a 3000-series with an Alder Lake i5.

The warranty: Basic 3-year plan. Not my words: Dell actually called it "basic", when I looked it up.

The problem: CPU fan decided to stop spinning. Ran the self-test from the boot menu and confirmed the problem.

The response: When we told Dell we had the test result (failure code, verification number) they agreed to fix it and scheduled a next-day on-site service visit to replace the fan.

They offered to ship us the fan, if we wanted to replace it, but our IT guy declined. I don't blame him. If something goes wrong or there's a bigger problem, the service tech has a better chance of dealing with it.

 

[artk2219]

Okay, I have a live example.

The machine: Dell Precision laptop. I forget the exact model number but it's a 3000-series with an Alder Lake i5.

The warranty: Basic 3-year plan. Not my words: Dell actually called it "basic", when I looked it up.

The problem: CPU fan decided to stop spinning. Ran the self-test from the boot menu and confirmed the problem.

The response: When we told Dell we had the test result (failure code, verification number) they agreed to fix it and scheduled a next-day on-site service visit to replace the fan.

They offered to ship us the fan, if we wanted to replace it, but our IT guy declined. I don't blame him. If something goes wrong or there's a bigger problem, the service tech has a better chance of dealing with it.

Yep. Thats Dell's standard BASIC business support. Apple has nothing like that, and I doubt they ever will, it would require too many concessions on their part. They would need to have readily available and published service manuals, parts, parts logistics for external contacts, and contracts with external trained technicians that are not directly under their purview. They would much rather inconvenience the client than give up any of that control.