Best Prices Today: Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is a popular and affordable alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop – not least because it’s available as a one-time purchase that doesn’t require a monthly subscription like Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps. But over the years it has evolved so it it no longer only an alternative to Photoshop. Pixelmator Pro can also be used to edit video and create professional layouts.

It’s a little tricky keeping track of the Pixelmator range as the developers at Pixelmator Team have a tendency to keep changing the name, and also producing multiple versions of the app for Macs, iPhone and iPad. The older Pixelmator Classic for Mac now seems to have been discontinued, leaving just Pixemator Pro on the Mac. And, on the mobile side, the iPhone and iPad versions of the app have merged into a single app that is simply called Pixelmator. And, just to confuse things further, Pixelmator Team recently launched an entirely new photo-editing app called Photomator that runs on Macs, iPhone and iPad.

We review a number of Photoshop alternatives here: Best photo editing software for Mac as well as some free options here: Best free photo editing app for Mac.

Tools and editing features

On the Mac side of the fence, Pixelmator Pro provides an impressive range of editing features, including AI-powered tools that can simplify tasks such as removing blemishes or unwanted details from an image. It even has an option for removing the background of an image entirely – which we often find very useful when preparing product photos for our own reviews on Macworld.

The interface won’t immediately be familiar if you are used to Photoshop. This could be good or bad: If you have Photoshop’s shortcuts and workflows in your muscle memory, it can take a long time to relearn, and when a feature is missing, it can be frustrating. On the other hand, it means that Pixelmator gets rid of 30 years of baggage and can think in new ways. Pixelmator Pro sticks to the most important features and doesn’t try to recreate exactly every Photoshop feature. Instead of four different ways of doing one thing, you get the best/easiest. And everything that is important for most people is there: Layers with layer masks, blending modes, adjustment layers, tools for drawing and painting, auto exposure, distortion and so on.

Over on the left you’ll find the Layers palette, which is key to using many of the app’s more powerful features. You can create both raster (bitmap) and vector layers.

Pixelmator Pro presents an effectively clean and sparse experience, keeping your focus on the image.

In a narrow column on the right are the tools. There are precise tools for selecting objects and colours, and both preset and customizable brush styles, all of which are neatly arranged in a palette that runs down the right-hand side of the main editing window.

One of the most eye-catching AI features is called ML Super Resolution and uses machine learning to magnify low-resolution images. With some images it is almost magical, but when we tested back in 2021 the results were mixed. Faces looked like they’ve been painted, straight lines became wavy, and although noise and pixelation disappeared to make the image “cleaner,” it looked unreal in return. See image above for example.

ML Crop is an automated cropping function based on the golden spiral that should help you get images with an effective composition. When we tested this we didn’t get results that we wouldn’t have made manually. Which is as it should be.

The program provides a useful selection of text and vector graphics tools, so that you can design documents that go beyond pure photography. You can use masks to isolate specific parts of a layer or image, there are powerful and precise histograms for adjusting colour and lighting.

There are also little helpful touches, such as the Colors histogram. Have you ever attempted to adjust a color in an image, but you don’t see much of an effect? Making green areas greener, for instance, sometimes requires decreasing the blue or cyan tones, but that’s not always visually evident. When you’re manipulating colors, the Colors histogram gives you a sense of how prevalent the colors are within the image to help you target which ones to adjust.

Pixelmator Pro has a unique way of showing control points for effects. When you apply a new effect, such as a vignette, a control point appears in the middle of the screen, adhered to a virtual thread connecting it to the Vignette controls in the Effects panel—it even pops with a little physics-simulated bounce. In this case, the point controls the center of the vignette area. Other controls, like the Perspective Transform, tie multiple control points to sections of the effect, like Top Left, Top Right, and so on.

Most of the editing you do in Pixelmator Pro is non-destructive, that is, if you regret it later you won’t have to go back to that particular step. For example, when you edit aspects such as exposure or saturation or add an effect like a vignette, the changes aren’t burned into the image’s pixels. They can be changed or removed at any time on a per-layer basis.

But that does not apply to everything, for example not a change of perspective. This is also the case in competing programs, but more annoying for those who work with text in images is that Pixelmator Pro, unlike both Photoshop and Affinity Photo, cannot retain editable text when you change the perspective of the text. For example, if you want to put text on a sign in a photo, you can’t fill in a temporary text, position and change the perspective of it so that it appears to be in the same plane as the sign, and then change the text. As soon as you change the perspective, it is rendered and becomes pixels.

Updates in the latest version

Rather than getting a major update every year or so, Pixelmator Pro tends to release regular updates that add a few new features every few months.

The developers are alert and over the years have added many requested features that were not initially there when it was first released in 2017.

The version 2 update in 2020 offered a fully customizable and refreshed user interface. Almost every element of the user interface, from the toolbar to every single menu and switch, was updated and refined. The update added over 200 new presets and more than 50 vector shapes for the color adjustment, effect, style, shape and gradient tools.

2.0.6 update (in 2022) added some new video tooltips that can help to explain how many of the main tools work, and point you towards some online tutorials if you need a little more help.

Version 2.1 brought the ML Crop tool (discussed above). This automatic cropping tool uses machine learning to get the best results. You choose things like aspect ratio and whether the crop should follow a rule of thirds or the golden spiral. Cropping in general also become faster, especially for large images with many layers.

In 2.1 the text tool was also improved with additional settings such as size, spacing and ligatures. The Paint tool has gained a brush gallery and search function, and a brush can be used to draw lines and edges. The program also gained a quick fill function: Drag and drop a color from the color palette directly onto a layer and suddenly the entire layer is filled with that color.

Version 3.0 focused mainly on adding new templates and mock-ups for creating different types of documents and projects. These include templates for posters, maps, logos, social media projects, general graphic objects and even print templates for magazine covers. You could say that with this update Pixelmator took on InDesign and Pages (Pages and InDesign are still more effective at their jobs though, and Pages is free). Version 3.1 added full compatibility with macOS Ventura.

However, v3.2 was a big update that introduced the ability to import and adjust the appearance of video files as well as static photos–Pixelmator Pro this time taking on video editors. Basic video editing tools include operations like trimming, cropping, and color adjustments. You can add text, images, shapes and apply masks to videos. Pixelmator Pro also comes with video templates for quick projects and posts on YouTube or even professionally made film titles. Export options include the option to create GIFs from videos and common formats such as MP4 and MOV. We found the layer management to be a great advantage when editing video because numerous effects, filters, and other applications can be easily placed over the imported film and checked before the finished result is exported.

Version 3.3 arrived in February 2023 and added a new Remove Colour tool.

Usability 

Our only real complaint is that Pixelmator does tend to just throw features onto the screen and then leave you to figure out how everything works. It’s not the most intuitive program for newcomers to get to grips with, and tends fill the screen with controls and palettes and just assume that you know what you’re doing. 

There are lots of tutorials and Help files on the Pixelmator website, but we can’t help thinking that Pixelmator Pro needs something similar to the Guided Edits that are found in Photoshop Elements, which provide simple step-by-step instructions for using some of that program’s more complex tools and features. 

Verdict 

There’s no doubt that Pixelmator Pro’s powerful array of editing tools represents excellent value for money, and the video editing features that arrived at the beginning of 2023 make this app even easier to recommend. Plus there’s a seven-day free trial also available as well.

Professional Software

Best Prices Today: Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro is a popular and affordable alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop – not least because it’s available as a one-time purchase that doesn’t require a monthly subscription like Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps. But over the years it has evolved so it it no longer only an alternative to Photoshop. Pixelmator Pro can also be used to edit video and create professional layouts.

It’s a little tricky keeping track of the Pixelmator range as the developers at Pixelmator Team have a tendency to keep changing the name, and also producing multiple versions of the app for Macs, iPhone and iPad. The older Pixelmator Classic for Mac now seems to have been discontinued, leaving just Pixemator Pro on the Mac. And, on the mobile side, the iPhone and iPad versions of the app have merged into a single app that is simply called Pixelmator. And, just to confuse things further, Pixelmator Team recently launched an entirely new photo-editing app called Photomator that runs on Macs, iPhone and iPad.

We review a number of Photoshop alternatives here: Best photo editing software for Mac as well as some free options here: Best free photo editing app for Mac.

Tools and editing features

On the Mac side of the fence, Pixelmator Pro provides an impressive range of editing features, including AI-powered tools that can simplify tasks such as removing blemishes or unwanted details from an image. It even has an option for removing the background of an image entirely – which we often find very useful when preparing product photos for our own reviews on Macworld.

The interface won’t immediately be familiar if you are used to Photoshop. This could be good or bad: If you have Photoshop’s shortcuts and workflows in your muscle memory, it can take a long time to relearn, and when a feature is missing, it can be frustrating. On the other hand, it means that Pixelmator gets rid of 30 years of baggage and can think in new ways. Pixelmator Pro sticks to the most important features and doesn’t try to recreate exactly every Photoshop feature. Instead of four different ways of doing one thing, you get the best/easiest. And everything that is important for most people is there: Layers with layer masks, blending modes, adjustment layers, tools for drawing and painting, auto exposure, distortion and so on.

Over on the left you’ll find the Layers palette, which is key to using many of the app’s more powerful features. You can create both raster (bitmap) and vector layers.

Pixelmator Pro presents an effectively clean and sparse experience, keeping your focus on the image.

In a narrow column on the right are the tools. There are precise tools for selecting objects and colours, and both preset and customizable brush styles, all of which are neatly arranged in a palette that runs down the right-hand side of the main editing window.

One of the most eye-catching AI features is called ML Super Resolution and uses machine learning to magnify low-resolution images. With some images it is almost magical, but when we tested back in 2021 the results were mixed. Faces looked like they’ve been painted, straight lines became wavy, and although noise and pixelation disappeared to make the image “cleaner,” it looked unreal in return. See image above for example.

ML Crop is an automated cropping function based on the golden spiral that should help you get images with an effective composition. When we tested this we didn’t get results that we wouldn’t have made manually. Which is as it should be.

The program provides a useful selection of text and vector graphics tools, so that you can design documents that go beyond pure photography. You can use masks to isolate specific parts of a layer or image, there are powerful and precise histograms for adjusting colour and lighting.

There are also little helpful touches, such as the Colors histogram. Have you ever attempted to adjust a color in an image, but you don’t see much of an effect? Making green areas greener, for instance, sometimes requires decreasing the blue or cyan tones, but that’s not always visually evident. When you’re manipulating colors, the Colors histogram gives you a sense of how prevalent the colors are within the image to help you target which ones to adjust.

Pixelmator Pro has a unique way of showing control points for effects. When you apply a new effect, such as a vignette, a control point appears in the middle of the screen, adhered to a virtual thread connecting it to the Vignette controls in the Effects panel—it even pops with a little physics-simulated bounce. In this case, the point controls the center of the vignette area. Other controls, like the Perspective Transform, tie multiple control points to sections of the effect, like Top Left, Top Right, and so on.

Most of the editing you do in Pixelmator Pro is non-destructive, that is, if you regret it later you won’t have to go back to that particular step. For example, when you edit aspects such as exposure or saturation or add an effect like a vignette, the changes aren’t burned into the image’s pixels. They can be changed or removed at any time on a per-layer basis.

But that does not apply to everything, for example not a change of perspective. This is also the case in competing programs, but more annoying for those who work with text in images is that Pixelmator Pro, unlike both Photoshop and Affinity Photo, cannot retain editable text when you change the perspective of the text. For example, if you want to put text on a sign in a photo, you can’t fill in a temporary text, position and change the perspective of it so that it appears to be in the same plane as the sign, and then change the text. As soon as you change the perspective, it is rendered and becomes pixels.

Updates in the latest version

Rather than getting a major update every year or so, Pixelmator Pro tends to release regular updates that add a few new features every few months.

The developers are alert and over the years have added many requested features that were not initially there when it was first released in 2017.

The version 2 update in 2020 offered a fully customizable and refreshed user interface. Almost every element of the user interface, from the toolbar to every single menu and switch, was updated and refined. The update added over 200 new presets and more than 50 vector shapes for the color adjustment, effect, style, shape and gradient tools.

2.0.6 update (in 2022) added some new video tooltips that can help to explain how many of the main tools work, and point you towards some online tutorials if you need a little more help.

Version 2.1 brought the ML Crop tool (discussed above). This automatic cropping tool uses machine learning to get the best results. You choose things like aspect ratio and whether the crop should follow a rule of thirds or the golden spiral. Cropping in general also become faster, especially for large images with many layers.

In 2.1 the text tool was also improved with additional settings such as size, spacing and ligatures. The Paint tool has gained a brush gallery and search function, and a brush can be used to draw lines and edges. The program also gained a quick fill function: Drag and drop a color from the color palette directly onto a layer and suddenly the entire layer is filled with that color.

Version 3.0 focused mainly on adding new templates and mock-ups for creating different types of documents and projects. These include templates for posters, maps, logos, social media projects, general graphic objects and even print templates for magazine covers. You could say that with this update Pixelmator took on InDesign and Pages (Pages and InDesign are still more effective at their jobs though, and Pages is free). Version 3.1 added full compatibility with macOS Ventura.

However, v3.2 was a big update that introduced the ability to import and adjust the appearance of video files as well as static photos–Pixelmator Pro this time taking on video editors. Basic video editing tools include operations like trimming, cropping, and color adjustments. You can add text, images, shapes and apply masks to videos. Pixelmator Pro also comes with video templates for quick projects and posts on YouTube or even professionally made film titles. Export options include the option to create GIFs from videos and common formats such as MP4 and MOV. We found the layer management to be a great advantage when editing video because numerous effects, filters, and other applications can be easily placed over the imported film and checked before the finished result is exported.

Version 3.3 arrived in February 2023 and added a new Remove Colour tool.

Usability 

Our only real complaint is that Pixelmator does tend to just throw features onto the screen and then leave you to figure out how everything works. It’s not the most intuitive program for newcomers to get to grips with, and tends fill the screen with controls and palettes and just assume that you know what you’re doing. 

There are lots of tutorials and Help files on the Pixelmator website, but we can’t help thinking that Pixelmator Pro needs something similar to the Guided Edits that are found in Photoshop Elements, which provide simple step-by-step instructions for using some of that program’s more complex tools and features. 

Verdict 

There’s no doubt that Pixelmator Pro’s powerful array of editing tools represents excellent value for money, and the video editing features that arrived at the beginning of 2023 make this app even easier to recommend. Plus there’s a seven-day free trial also available as well.

Professional Software

Waves of extreme heat have already passed across the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world so far this summer. While people are at the greatest risk from high temperatures, your Mac may be even more fragile. (People can be water cooled and no current Mac offers that option—though some have tried.) An iPhone or iPad will warn you when it detects it’s too hot before shutting down, while a Mac may simply suddenly power off. If it doesn’t power down, you may be running it to close to its maximum capability and putting a lot of additional wear in the process on components that might fail later during other seasons.

Knowing the temperature is one thing. The other is how hot should your internal components run? Apple says you should only use a Mac when the ambient temperature—the temperature around you—is in the range of 50°F to 95°F (10° to 35°C) and 95 percent or lower humidity.

Internal components produce far more heat than the ambient temperature, with around 100°F or 40°C often the minimum at which they operate in normal indoor circumstances. CPUs, GPUs, ports, and other elements shouldn’t exceed about 192°F (89°C) for extended periods. At 212°F (100°C), the boiling temperature for water at sea level, you should either figure out what energy hogs are making your computer work that hard or shut the system down for a while. (Hint: It’s almost always a browser.) You can use the Activity Monitor app in Applications > Utilities to look at Energy Impact in the Energy column for more particulars.

Checking the Mac’s temperature

Moderns Macs have an inordinate number of power sensors to detect problems and manage fan speeds in models that contain them—I count 34 using one tool on an M1 Mac mini. These sensors can be monitored with the right knowledge or software. (Also read: Why is my Mac fan so loud).

On some Intel Macs, you can use Terminal or a free utility for basic temperature monitoring. In Terminal enter the following command and press return:

sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature"

(Note that those quotation marks are straight double-quotes.) Enter your administrative password when prompted. This will provide a continuous temperature reading of the CPU’s temperature. Press Control-C to stop the monitoring.

You can also install the free app Fanny (not the most perfect name for U.K. and other Commonwealth Mac owners), which offers a simple drop-down set of information in the menu bar or as a notifications widget. Details include the average CPU and GPU temperature along with current fan speeds.

For any Intel Mac and M1-based Mac, the utility TG Pro ($20 but often on sale for $10) provides detailed monitoring and fan control. You can see the temperature recorded by every sensor in your Mac and for hard disks and SSDs that support the industry-standard SMART diagnostics. Information and controls are available both in a standard app window and a drop-down menu bar. That bar shows the highest port and CPU temperature and the current fan rotation.

You can also monitor the speed of internal fans and override Apple’s settings. This includes creating rules for when fans and how fast fans run. The app comes with a preset rule that turns the blades up to their maximum rotation if the highest temperature of any CPU parameter is at least 158°F (70°C). Just note, your MacBook Air doesn’t have a fan.

Ask Mac 911

We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently, along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.com, including screen captures as appropriate and whether you want your full name used. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.

Mac

The Mac Studio had a splashy debut last year, a new desktop design with speed that filled the needs of the most demanding professionals. But it also raised a few questions at the time: Does it replace the Mac Pro? And if it doesn’t, will Apple continue the Mac Studio line once the Apple silicon Mac Pro arrives? Would the Mac Studio end up just like iMac Pro, a model that got little attention after its release and eventually was discontinued?

We now have answers that give the Mac lineup some much-needed clarity. Apple showed at WWDC that it is dedicated to upgrading and maintaining the high-end desktop Mac as a platform with the release of the M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio and the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. The Mac Studio is Apple’s primary offering for customers looking for a high-performance Mac, while the Mac Pro addresses a niche that needs hardware expansion.

However, the M2 Pro Mac mini that Apple released back in January provides an interesting comparison with the M2 Max Mac Studio. Whether that Mac mini or the M2 Max Mac Studio is the Mac for you depends on the kind of work you do.

This review looks at the Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, a 38-core GPU, 64GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. It has several upgrades over the entry-level $1,999/£2,099 M2 Max Mac Studio, which puts the price of our review unit at $3,199/£3,299. Apple also sells a $3,999/£4,199 Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra, 64GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD.

Update 6/13: The M2 Max Mac Studio is now shipping from Apple.com and other retailers.

From M1 Max to the M2 Max

The Mac Studio debuted in March of last year with M1 Max and M1 Ultra models. The M1 chip series has had its time (there are only two Macs left with the entry-level M1 chip), and the M2 series is in full swing. The Mac Studio now comes with an M2 Max or M2 Ultra for the same price.

New chips mean, of course, boosted performance. The M2 Max has a 12-core CPU, which is split between eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. Its predecessor, the M1 Max, had two fewer efficiency cores (10 total CPU cores). Apple claims an improvement of up to 25 percent over the M1 Max.

We always start off our reviews with a look at general-purpose performance with the Geekbench benchmark. In our multi-core testing, the M2 Max was 18 percent faster than the M1 Max it replaces–not the 25 percent Apple claims, but Apple does hedge it by saying “up to 25 percent.” The M2 Max’s single-core result provides a 19 percent improvement.

A data point that sticks out is the multi-core result of the M2 Pro–this chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Max. The M2 Pro that I tested in the 16-inch MacBook Pro is about 5 percent slower than the M2 Max Mac Studio, a difference you’ll barely notice, so it basically has the same CPU performance. The M2 Pro is a $300 option on the $1,299 Mac mini; if your work involves a lot of CPU processing and less graphics processing (which we’ll get to in a bit), the Mac mini can be a more affordable option over the Mac Studio.

We also ran Cinebench R23 to gauge CPU performance, and these are the results that matter most to buyers of the Mac Studio since Cinebench mainly uses 3D rendering and is a better performance gauge for creative professionals. We saw a 20 percent improvement of the M2 Max over the M1 Max–still not 25 percent, but closer.

We also again saw that the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini had the same performance. It’s important to reiterate here that even though Cinebench is a CPU-focused 3D rendering test and doesn’t rely on the chip’s GPU.

HandBrake is a video converter app that stresses the CPU or specialized video hardware, depending on how it is configured. In this test, we transcoded the 4K version of the royalty-free Tears of Steel video to H.265 using the CPU and the video encoders (the “VideoToolbox” framework version).

In the CPU encode test, the M2 Max blew by the M1 Max, improving performance by 32 percent. Our results also showed that the M2 Max has a slight edge over the M2 Pro, which is likely due to the amount of memory available. The Mac mini in our tests had 16GB of RAM, while the Mac Studio has 64GB.

The M2 Max’s boost over the M1 Max was a more modest 18 percent when using the video encoders. It also posted the same speed as the M2 Pro Mac mini.

With the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, we saw a small 5 percent improvement in the M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD over the M1 Max. That’s a noticeable difference when dealing with large files. The Read results are basically similar. The M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD also posted moderate boosts over the M2 Pro Mac mini’s SSD.

The GPU gets a boost, too

The M2 Max in this review has a 38-core GPU, which is an upgrade from the 30-core GPU in the $1,999 Mac Studio. The 32-core GPU in the M1 Max Mac Studio that we reviewed last year was also an upgrade option. So in our GPU comparisons, we’re looking at the new 38-core GPU versus the old 32-core GPU.

The Geekbench 6 Compute benchmark tests the GPU performance using OpenCL or Metal APIs. Metal is developed by Apple and it’s the API the company wants developers to use to get the best performance. OpenCL is an open-standard API that’s more widely used because of its cross-compatibility.

With both the Metal and OpenCL benchmarks, the M2 Max’s 38-core GPU provides speed that is over 21 percent faster than the M1 Max’s 30-core GPU. The M1 Ultra is included in this testing for your reference–with either 48 or 64 GPU cores, it zooms past the M2 Max. The M2 Ultra is available with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

I made it a point to call out the M2 Max’s similar CPU performance against the M2 Pro, but here’s where the M2 Max Mac Studio separates itself from the M2 Pro Mac mini, which comes with either 16 or 19 GPU cores. If your work involves GPU processing, get a Mac Studio with as many GPU cores as you can afford.

Apple says it wants to bring more games to the Mac, and at WWDC, the company revealed some efforts to get more developers on board. It’s going to take some time before we can get some modern games to benchmark with, so in the meantime, we’re sticking to what we have: Tomb Raider and Civilization 6. The M2 Max Mac Studio posted some impressive framerates.

Resident Evil Village is a more recent game that features MetalFX Upscaling, which can boost graphics performance in software that uses Apple’s MetalFX API. It’s the type of graphics upscaling that AMD and Nvidia have done on the Windows PC.

To see it in action on the Mac Studio, I activated a Metal Performance HUD, which displays the frame rate. (You can do this in the Terminal by entering at the prompt defaults write -g MetalForceHudEnabled -bool yes and then hit Return. To turn it off, enter the same code in Terminal but replace yes with no.) I set the game display settings with the Prioritize Graphics preset and the screen resolution at 2560×1440. Then I ran the game twice.

The first time, I did not use MetalFX Upscaling and I had frame rates between 130 and 160 fps when moving around the game. The second time, I activated MetalFX Upscaling to the Quality setting, and the frame rates jumped up between 160 to 195 fps. What a sweet boost! Hopefully, Apple will do more to promote this technology to game developers so we can see the Mac gaming library grow and, more importantly, become more current.

Apple chips have video encoding engines, and we use iMovie to test them out. In our export tests, we didn’t see a difference between the M2 Max and the M1 Max, which isn’t that surprising since the engines between the two are very similar. The iMovie Stabilze test that we do puts pressure on the chip’s Neural Engine, and we see a 20 percent difference between the two chips.

The M2 Max has twice as many ProRes engines as the M2 Pro, which explains why it is so much faster in our tests.

A big difference with display support

The main thing that’s new about the 2023 Mac Studio is the system on a chip–almost everything else is the same as last year. Apple didn’t introduce any design modifications or change the number of ports, though there are some upgrades. The headphone jack now has advanced support for high-impedance headphones and you get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 as with Apple’s other recent Macs.

However, there is a big change in the display support. The 2023 Mac Studio has an “enhanced HDMI” port instead of HDMI 2.0, and this enhanced HDMI implementation supports features in the HDMI 2.1 specification. This upgrade fixes the major flaw in the original Mac Studio: its HDMI port has a maximum resolution of 4K at 60Hz. Now, you can connect a display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 240Hz. And there’s support for variable refresh rate, HDR, and multichannel audio.

That’s not all! If you also use Thunderbolt, the M2 Max Mac Pro still supports four displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 4K at 60Hz over HDMI. The new feature is that you can now connect two displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at up to 240Hz over HDMI. Did you get all that? Cool!

If you need to go hog wild with the displays, you’ll need to upgrade to the M2 Ultra Mac Studio. Since this is a review of the M2 Max Mac Studio, I’m not going to go over all the M2 Ultra display configurations. You can check out Apple’s website, but here’s a little teaser: you can connect up to eight 4K at 60Hz displays. Yowza!

You can read my review from, last year if you want a deep dive into the Mac Studio’s design, find out the details about the external ports, or get the nitty-gritty on Apple’s mouse, trackpad, and keyboard offerings. Here’s a quick bullet-point summary if you want the gist.

• The Mac Studio measures 7.7 inches square and is 3.7 inches tall. The M2 Max model is 5.7 pounds, while the M2 Ultra model is two pounds heavier because of the thermal system it needs.
• The back of the Mac Studio has four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb ethernet port, two USB-A ports, enhanced HDMI, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack
• The front of the Mac Studio has either two USB-C ports (M2 Max model) or two Thunderbolt 4 ports (M2 Ultra model), and an SDXC Card slot
• The Mac Studio does not include a mouse, trackpad, or keyboard. You can provide your own but know that the Mac Studio works with the Magic Keyboard Touch ID and Numeric Keypad ($199). Touch ID is handy to have.

Mac Studio or M2 Pro Mac mini?

As shown by our testing, the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini have similar CPU performance. That makes sense since both CPUs have 12 cores, split into 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. With that being the case, if you know that the apps you work in the most are CPU dependent, the M2 Pro Mac mini could be a money-saving consideration–if you don’t customize it beyond the CPU upgrade.

To get the 12-core M2 Pro Mac mini, customers take the $1,299 standard configuration 10-core M2 Pro Mac mini and upgrade the CPU. That brings the price up to $1,599 on a model with 16GB of memory. If you then decide to also upgrade to 32GB of memory, the price is $1,999–the same price as a base model M2 Max Mac Studio with a 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 32GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. For the same price, the Mac Studio provides more GPU performance, front ports, and expanded display support.

If you use a lot of pro-level software that is GPU dependent, then the Mac Studio is the definite choice with its better graphics performance. The M2 Pro Mac mini’s GPU tops off at 19 cores, while the M2 Max Mac Studio GPU starts at 30 cores and has an upgrade to 38 cores (which we tested here). If you need more, you can upgrade to an M2 Ultra with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

The M2 Pro Mac mini has other limitations that could sway you towards a Mac Studio. Its maximum memory configuration is 32GB, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can have up to 64GB, or 96GB if you upgrade to the 38-core GPU. Also, the M2 Pro Mac mini supports up to three 4K 60Hz displays, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can handle up to five, and the M2 Ultra Mac Studio can support up to eight.

Still a worthy investment

Thanks to the internet, everyone is a media creator nowadays, whether you’re tending to social media, making your own movies, producing music, shooting and editing photos, creating works of art, or developing software. The Mac Studio is the ideal Mac–it’s powerful, priced appropriately, has lots of ports for connecting devices, and it won’t take up a lot of desk space.

If you bought a Mac Studio last year, there’s little reason to upgrade, unless processing power is a never-ending search for you, or you need to connect more displays than what the 2022 Mac Studio can handle. If you can hold off until later 2024 or early 2025, we could get the M3 Max/Pro by then, and the M3’s new 3nm process promises to take Apple silicon beyond the 25 percent incremental improvement we usually get.

If you’ve been holding off on the Mac Studio all this time, what are you waiting for? The Mac Pro? Well, it’s here, have fun with it! Seriously, if the Mac Studio fits the bill when it first came out but you waited, you could keep waiting for the M3 I just mentioned. Or you can get one now and get some work done faster than ever before.

The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M2 Max–you get a great number of features and power, especially if you compare it to the M2 Pro Mac mini. The Mac Studio with Apple’s most powerful chip, the M2 Ultra, starts at $3,999.

Mac

The Mac Studio had a splashy debut last year, a new desktop design with speed that filled the needs of the most demanding professionals. But it also raised a few questions at the time: Does it replace the Mac Pro? And if it doesn’t, will Apple continue the Mac Studio line once the Apple silicon Mac Pro arrives? Would the Mac Studio end up just like iMac Pro, a model that got little attention after its release and eventually was discontinued?

We now have answers that give the Mac lineup some much-needed clarity. Apple showed at WWDC that it is dedicated to upgrading and maintaining the high-end desktop Mac as a platform with the release of the M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio and the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. The Mac Studio is Apple’s primary offering for customers looking for a high-performance Mac, while the Mac Pro addresses a niche that needs hardware expansion.

However, the M2 Pro Mac mini that Apple released back in January provides an interesting comparison with the M2 Max Mac Studio. Whether that Mac mini or the M2 Max Mac Studio is the Mac for you depends on the kind of work you do.

This review looks at the Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, a 38-core GPU, 64GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. It has several upgrades over the entry-level $1,999/£2,099 M2 Max Mac Studio, which puts the price of our review unit at $3,199/£3,299. Apple also sells a $3,999/£4,199 Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra, 64GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD.

Update 6/13: The M2 Max Mac Studio is now shipping from Apple.com and other retailers.

From M1 Max to the M2 Max

The Mac Studio debuted in March of last year with M1 Max and M1 Ultra models. The M1 chip series has had its time (there are only two Macs left with the entry-level M1 chip), and the M2 series is in full swing. The Mac Studio now comes with an M2 Max or M2 Ultra for the same price.

New chips mean, of course, boosted performance. The M2 Max has a 12-core CPU, which is split between eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. Its predecessor, the M1 Max, had two fewer efficiency cores (10 total CPU cores). Apple claims an improvement of up to 25 percent over the M1 Max.

We always start off our reviews with a look at general-purpose performance with the Geekbench benchmark. In our multi-core testing, the M2 Max was 18 percent faster than the M1 Max it replaces–not the 25 percent Apple claims, but Apple does hedge it by saying “up to 25 percent.” The M2 Max’s single-core result provides a 19 percent improvement.

A data point that sticks out is the multi-core result of the M2 Pro–this chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Max. The M2 Pro that I tested in the 16-inch MacBook Pro is about 5 percent slower than the M2 Max Mac Studio, a difference you’ll barely notice, so it basically has the same CPU performance. The M2 Pro is a $300 option on the $1,299 Mac mini; if your work involves a lot of CPU processing and less graphics processing (which we’ll get to in a bit), the Mac mini can be a more affordable option over the Mac Studio.

We also ran Cinebench R23 to gauge CPU performance, and these are the results that matter most to buyers of the Mac Studio since Cinebench mainly uses 3D rendering and is a better performance gauge for creative professionals. We saw a 20 percent improvement of the M2 Max over the M1 Max–still not 25 percent, but closer.

We also again saw that the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini had the same performance. It’s important to reiterate here that even though Cinebench is a CPU-focused 3D rendering test and doesn’t rely on the chip’s GPU.

HandBrake is a video converter app that stresses the CPU or specialized video hardware, depending on how it is configured. In this test, we transcoded the 4K version of the royalty-free Tears of Steel video to H.265 using the CPU and the video encoders (the “VideoToolbox” framework version).

In the CPU encode test, the M2 Max blew by the M1 Max, improving performance by 32 percent. Our results also showed that the M2 Max has a slight edge over the M2 Pro, which is likely due to the amount of memory available. The Mac mini in our tests had 16GB of RAM, while the Mac Studio has 64GB.

The M2 Max’s boost over the M1 Max was a more modest 18 percent when using the video encoders. It also posted the same speed as the M2 Pro Mac mini.

With the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, we saw a small 5 percent improvement in the M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD over the M1 Max. That’s a noticeable difference when dealing with large files. The Read results are basically similar. The M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD also posted moderate boosts over the M2 Pro Mac mini’s SSD.

The GPU gets a boost, too

The M2 Max in this review has a 38-core GPU, which is an upgrade from the 30-core GPU in the $1,999 Mac Studio. The 32-core GPU in the M1 Max Mac Studio that we reviewed last year was also an upgrade option. So in our GPU comparisons, we’re looking at the new 38-core GPU versus the old 32-core GPU.

The Geekbench 6 Compute benchmark tests the GPU performance using OpenCL or Metal APIs. Metal is developed by Apple and it’s the API the company wants developers to use to get the best performance. OpenCL is an open-standard API that’s more widely used because of its cross-compatibility.

With both the Metal and OpenCL benchmarks, the M2 Max’s 38-core GPU provides speed that is over 21 percent faster than the M1 Max’s 30-core GPU. The M1 Ultra is included in this testing for your reference–with either 48 or 64 GPU cores, it zooms past the M2 Max. The M2 Ultra is available with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

I made it a point to call out the M2 Max’s similar CPU performance against the M2 Pro, but here’s where the M2 Max Mac Studio separates itself from the M2 Pro Mac mini, which comes with either 16 or 19 GPU cores. If your work involves GPU processing, get a Mac Studio with as many GPU cores as you can afford.

Apple says it wants to bring more games to the Mac, and at WWDC, the company revealed some efforts to get more developers on board. It’s going to take some time before we can get some modern games to benchmark with, so in the meantime, we’re sticking to what we have: Tomb Raider and Civilization 6. The M2 Max Mac Studio posted some impressive framerates.

Resident Evil Village is a more recent game that features MetalFX Upscaling, which can boost graphics performance in software that uses Apple’s MetalFX API. It’s the type of graphics upscaling that AMD and Nvidia have done on the Windows PC.

To see it in action on the Mac Studio, I activated a Metal Performance HUD, which displays the frame rate. (You can do this in the Terminal by entering at the prompt defaults write -g MetalForceHudEnabled -bool yes and then hit Return. To turn it off, enter the same code in Terminal but replace yes with no.) I set the game display settings with the Prioritize Graphics preset and the screen resolution at 2560×1440. Then I ran the game twice.

The first time, I did not use MetalFX Upscaling and I had frame rates between 130 and 160 fps when moving around the game. The second time, I activated MetalFX Upscaling to the Quality setting, and the frame rates jumped up between 160 to 195 fps. What a sweet boost! Hopefully, Apple will do more to promote this technology to game developers so we can see the Mac gaming library grow and, more importantly, become more current.

Apple chips have video encoding engines, and we use iMovie to test them out. In our export tests, we didn’t see a difference between the M2 Max and the M1 Max, which isn’t that surprising since the engines between the two are very similar. The iMovie Stabilze test that we do puts pressure on the chip’s Neural Engine, and we see a 20 percent difference between the two chips.

The M2 Max has twice as many ProRes engines as the M2 Pro, which explains why it is so much faster in our tests.

A big difference with display support

The main thing that’s new about the 2023 Mac Studio is the system on a chip–almost everything else is the same as last year. Apple didn’t introduce any design modifications or change the number of ports, though there are some upgrades. The headphone jack now has advanced support for high-impedance headphones and you get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 as with Apple’s other recent Macs.

However, there is a big change in the display support. The 2023 Mac Studio has an “enhanced HDMI” port instead of HDMI 2.0, and this enhanced HDMI implementation supports features in the HDMI 2.1 specification. This upgrade fixes the major flaw in the original Mac Studio: its HDMI port has a maximum resolution of 4K at 60Hz. Now, you can connect a display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 240Hz. And there’s support for variable refresh rate, HDR, and multichannel audio.

That’s not all! If you also use Thunderbolt, the M2 Max Mac Pro still supports four displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 4K at 60Hz over HDMI. The new feature is that you can now connect two displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at up to 240Hz over HDMI. Did you get all that? Cool!

If you need to go hog wild with the displays, you’ll need to upgrade to the M2 Ultra Mac Studio. Since this is a review of the M2 Max Mac Studio, I’m not going to go over all the M2 Ultra display configurations. You can check out Apple’s website, but here’s a little teaser: you can connect up to eight 4K at 60Hz displays. Yowza!

You can read my review from, last year if you want a deep dive into the Mac Studio’s design, find out the details about the external ports, or get the nitty-gritty on Apple’s mouse, trackpad, and keyboard offerings. Here’s a quick bullet-point summary if you want the gist.

• The Mac Studio measures 7.7 inches square and is 3.7 inches tall. The M2 Max model is 5.7 pounds, while the M2 Ultra model is two pounds heavier because of the thermal system it needs.
• The back of the Mac Studio has four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb ethernet port, two USB-A ports, enhanced HDMI, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack
• The front of the Mac Studio has either two USB-C ports (M2 Max model) or two Thunderbolt 4 ports (M2 Ultra model), and an SDXC Card slot
• The Mac Studio does not include a mouse, trackpad, or keyboard. You can provide your own but know that the Mac Studio works with the Magic Keyboard Touch ID and Numeric Keypad ($199). Touch ID is handy to have.

Mac Studio or M2 Pro Mac mini?

As shown by our testing, the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini have similar CPU performance. That makes sense since both CPUs have 12 cores, split into 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. With that being the case, if you know that the apps you work in the most are CPU dependent, the M2 Pro Mac mini could be a money-saving consideration–if you don’t customize it beyond the CPU upgrade.

To get the 12-core M2 Pro Mac mini, customers take the $1,299 standard configuration 10-core M2 Pro Mac mini and upgrade the CPU. That brings the price up to $1,599 on a model with 16GB of memory. If you then decide to also upgrade to 32GB of memory, the price is $1,999–the same price as a base model M2 Max Mac Studio with a 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 32GB of memory, and a 512GB SSD. For the same price, the Mac Studio provides more GPU performance, front ports, and expanded display support.

If you use a lot of pro-level software that is GPU dependent, then the Mac Studio is the definite choice with its better graphics performance. The M2 Pro Mac mini’s GPU tops off at 19 cores, while the M2 Max Mac Studio GPU starts at 30 cores and has an upgrade to 38 cores (which we tested here). If you need more, you can upgrade to an M2 Ultra with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

The M2 Pro Mac mini has other limitations that could sway you towards a Mac Studio. Its maximum memory configuration is 32GB, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can have up to 64GB, or 96GB if you upgrade to the 38-core GPU. Also, the M2 Pro Mac mini supports up to three 4K 60Hz displays, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can handle up to five, and the M2 Ultra Mac Studio can support up to eight.

Still a worthy investment

Thanks to the internet, everyone is a media creator nowadays, whether you’re tending to social media, making your own movies, producing music, shooting and editing photos, creating works of art, or developing software. The Mac Studio is the ideal Mac–it’s powerful, priced appropriately, has lots of ports for connecting devices, and it won’t take up a lot of desk space.

If you bought a Mac Studio last year, there’s little reason to upgrade, unless processing power is a never-ending search for you, or you need to connect more displays than what the 2022 Mac Studio can handle. If you can hold off until later 2024 or early 2025, we could get the M3 Max/Pro by then, and the M3’s new 3nm process promises to take Apple silicon beyond the 25 percent incremental improvement we usually get.

If you’ve been holding off on the Mac Studio all this time, what are you waiting for? The Mac Pro? Well, it’s here, have fun with it! Seriously, if the Mac Studio fits the bill when it first came out but you waited, you could keep waiting for the M3 I just mentioned. Or you can get one now and get some work done faster than ever before.

The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M2 Max–you get a great number of features and power, especially if you compare it to the M2 Pro Mac mini. The Mac Studio with Apple’s most powerful chip, the M2 Ultra, starts at $3,999.

Mac

The Mac Studio had a splashy debut last year, a new desktop design with speed that filled the needs of the most demanding professionals. But it also raised a few questions at the time: Does it replace the Mac Pro? And if it doesn’t, will Apple continue the Mac Studio line once the Apple silicon Mac Pro arrives? Would the Mac Studio end up just like iMac Pro, a model that got little attention after its release and eventually was discontinued?

We now have answers that give the Mac lineup some much-needed clarity. Apple showed at WWDC that it is dedicated to upgrading and maintaining the high-end desktop Mac as a platform with the release of the M2 Max/Ultra Mac Studio and the M2 Ultra Mac Pro. The Mac Studio is Apple’s primary offering for customers looking for a high-performance Mac, while the Mac Pro addresses a niche that needs hardware expansion.

However, the M2 Pro Mac mini that Apple released back in January provides an interesting comparison with the M2 Max Mac Studio. Whether that Mac mini or the M2 Max Mac Studio is the Mac for you depends on the kind of work you do.

This review looks at the Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, a 38-core GPU, 64GB of memory, and a 2TB SSD. It has several upgrades over the entry-level $1,999 M2 Max Mac Studio, which puts the price of our review unit at $3,199. Apple also sells a $3,999 Mac Studio with an M2 Ultra, 64GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD.

From M1 Max to the M2 Max

The Mac Studio debuted in March of last year with M1 Max and M1 Ultra models. The M1 chip series has had its time (there are only two Macs left with the entry-level M1 chip), and the M2 series is in full swing. The Mac Studio now comes with an M2 Max or M2 Ultra for the same price.

New chips mean, of course, boosted performance. The M2 Max has a 12-core CPU, which is split between eight performance cores and four efficiency cores. Its predecessor, the M1 Max, had two fewer efficiency cores (10 total CPU cores). Apple claims an improvement of up to 25 percent over the M1 Max.

We always start off our reviews with a look at general-purpose performance with the Geekbench benchmark. In our multi-core testing, the M2 Max was 18 percent faster than the M1 Max it replaces–not the 25 percent Apple claims, but Apple does hedge it by saying “up to 25 percent.” The M2 Max’s single-core result provides a 19 percent improvement.

A data point that sticks out is the multi-core result of the M2 Pro–this chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Max. The M2 Pro that I tested in the 16-inch MacBook Pro is about 5 percent slower than the M2 Max Mac Studio, a difference you’ll barely notice, so it basically has the same CPU performance. The M2 Pro is a $300 option on the $1,299 Mac mini; if your work involves a lot of CPU processing and less graphics processing (which we’ll get to in a bit), the Mac mini can be a more affordable option over the Mac Studio.

We also ran Cinebench R23 to gauge CPU performance, and these are the results that matter most to buyers of the Mac Studio since Cinebench mainly uses 3D rendering and is a better performance gauge for creative professionals. We saw a 20 percent improvement of the M2 Max over the M1 Max–still not 25 percent, but closer.

We also again saw that the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini had the same performance. It’s important to reiterate here that even though Cinebench is a CPU-focused 3D rendering test and doesn’t rely on the chip’s GPU.

HandBrake is a video converter app that stresses the CPU or specialized video hardware, depending on how it is configured. In this test, we transcoded the 4K version of the royalty-free Tears of Steel video to H.265 using the CPU and the video encoders (the “VideoToolbox” framework version).

In the CPU encode test, the M2 Max blew by the M1 Max, improving performance by 32 percent. Our results also showed that the M2 Max has a slight edge over the M2 Pro, which is likely due to the amount of memory available. The Mac mini in our tests had 16GB of RAM, while the Mac Studio has 64GB.

The M2 Max’s boost over the M1 Max was a more modest 18 percent when using the video encoders. It also posted the same speed as the M2 Pro Mac mini.

With the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, we saw a small 5 percent improvement in the M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD over the M1 Max. That’s a noticeable difference when dealing with large files. The Read results are basically similar. The M2 Max Mac Studio’s SSD also posted moderate boosts over the M2 Pro Mac mini’s SSD.

The GPU gets a boost, too

The M2 Max in this review has a 38-core GPU, which is an upgrade from the 30-core GPU in the $1,999 Mac Studio. The 32-core GPU in the M1 Max Mac Studio that we reviewed last year was also an upgrade option. So in our GPU comparisons, we’re looking at the new 38-core GPU versus the old 32-core GPU.

The Geekbench 6 Compute benchmark tests the GPU performance using OpenCL or Metal APIs. Metal is developed by Apple and it’s the API the company wants developers to use to get the best performance. OpenCL is an open-standard API that’s more widely used because of its cross-compatibility.

With both the Metal and OpenCL benchmarks, the M2 Max’s 38-core GPU provides speed that is over 21 percent faster than the M1 Max’s 30-core GPU. The M1 Ultra is included in this testing for your reference–with either 48 or 64 GPU cores, it zooms past the M2 Max. The M2 Ultra is available with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

I made it a point to call out the M2 Max’s similar CPU performance against the M2 Pro, but here’s where the M2 Max Mac Studio separates itself from the M2 Pro Mac mini, which comes with either 16 or 19 GPU cores. If your work involves GPU processing, get a Mac Studio with as many GPU cores as you can afford.

Apple says it wants to bring more games to the Mac, and at WWDC, the company revealed some efforts to get more developers on board. It’s going to take some time before we can get some modern games to benchmark with, so in the meantime, we’re sticking to what we have: Tomb Raider and Civilization 6. The M2 Max Mac Studio posted some impressive framerates.

Resident Evil Village is a more recent game that features MetalFX Upscaling, which can boost graphics performance in software that uses Apple’s MetalFX API. It’s the type of graphics upscaling that AMD and Nvidia have done on the Windows PC.

To see it in action on the Mac Studio, I activated a Metal Performance HUD, which displays the frame rate. (You can do this in the Terminal by entering at the prompt defaults write -g MetalForceHudEnabled -bool yes and then hit Return. To turn it off, enter the same code in Terminal but replace yes with no.) I set the game display settings with the Prioritize Graphics preset and the screen resolution at 2560×1440. Then I ran the game twice.

The first time, I did not use MetalFX Upscaling and I had frame rates between 130 and 160 fps when moving around the game. The second time, I activated MetalFX Upscaling to the Quality setting, and the frame rates jumped up between 160 to 195 fps. What a sweet boost! Hopefully, Apple will do more to promote this technology to game developers so we can see the Mac gaming library grow and, more importantly, become more current.

Apple chips have video encoding engines, and we use iMovie to test them out. In our export tests, we didn’t see a difference between the M2 Max and the M1 Max, which isn’t that surprising since the engines between the two are very similar. The iMovie Stabilze test that we do puts pressure on the chip’s Neural Engine, and we see a 20 percent difference between the two chips.

The M2 Max has twice as many ProRes engines as the M2 Pro, which explains why it is so much faster in our tests.

A big difference with display support

The main thing that’s new about the 2023 Mac Studio is the system on a chip–almost everything else is the same as last year. Apple didn’t introduce any design modifications or change the number of ports, though there are some upgrades. The headphone jack now has advanced support for high-impedance headphones and you get Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 as with Apple’s other recent Macs.

However, there is a big change in the display support. The 2023 Mac Studio has an “enhanced HDMI” port instead of HDMI 2.0, and this enhanced HDMI implementation supports features in the HDMI 2.1 specification. This upgrade fixes the major flaw in the original Mac Studio: its HDMI port has a maximum resolution of 4K at 60Hz. Now, you can connect a display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 240Hz. And there’s support for variable refresh rate, HDR, and multichannel audio.

That’s not all! If you also use Thunderbolt, the M2 Max Mac Pro still supports four displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 4K at 60Hz over HDMI. The new feature is that you can now connect two displays with 6K at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one display with 8K at 60Hz or 4K at up to 240Hz over HDMI. Did you get all that? Cool!

If you need to go hog wild with the displays, you’ll need to upgrade to the M2 Ultra Mac Studio. Since this is a review of the M2 Max Mac Studio, I’m not going to go over all the M2 Ultra display configurations. You can check out Apple’s website, but here’s a little teaser: you can connect up to eight 4K at 60Hz displays. Yowza!

You can read my review from, last year if you want a deep dive into the Mac Studio’s design, find out the details about the external ports, or get the nitty-gritty on Apple’s mouse, trackpad, and keyboard offerings. Here’s a quick bullet-point summary if you want the gist.

• The Mac Studio measures 7.7 inches square and is 3.7 inches tall. The M2 Max model is 5.7 pounds, while the M2 Ultra model is two pounds heavier because of the thermal system it needs.
• The back of the Mac Studio has four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb ethernet port, two USB-A ports, enhanced HDMI, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack
• The front of the Mac Studio has either two USB-C ports (M2 Max model) or two Thunderbolt 4 ports (M2 Ultra model), and an SDXC Card slot
• The Mac Studio does not include a mouse, trackpad, or keyboard. You can provide your own but know that the Mac Studio works with the Magic Keyboard Touch ID and Numeric Keypad ($199). Touch ID is handy to have.

Mac Studio or M2 Pro Mac mini?

As shown by our testing, the M2 Max Mac Studio and the M2 Pro Mac mini have similar CPU performance. That makes sense since both CPUs have 12 cores, split into 8 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. With that being the case, if you know that the apps you work in the most are CPU dependent, the M2 Pro Mac mini could be a money-saving consideration–if you don’t customize it beyond the CPU upgrade.

To get the 12-core M2 Pro Mac Studio, customers take the $1,299 standard configuration 10-core M2 Pro Mac mini and upgrade the CPU. That brings the price up to $1,599 on a model with 16GB of memory. If you then decide to also upgrade to 32GB of memory, the price is $1,999–the same price as a base model M2 Max Mac Studio with a 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 32GB or memory, and a 512GB SSD. For the same price, you can get more GPU performance, front ports, and expanded display support.

If you use a lot of pro-level software that is GPU dependent, then the Mac Studio is the definite choice with its better graphics performance. The M2 Pro Mac mini’s GPU tops off at 19 cores, while the M2 Max Mac Studio GPU starts at 30 cores and has an upgrade to 38 cores (which we tested here). If you need more, you can upgrade to an M2 Ultra with 60 or 76 GPU cores.

The M2 Pro Mac mini has other limitations that could sway you towards a Mac Studio. Its maximum memory configuration is 32GB, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can have up to 64GB, or 96GB if you upgrade to the 38-core GPU. Also, the M2 Pro Mac mini supports up to three 4K 60Hz displays, while the M2 Max Mac Studio can handle up to five, and the M2 Ultra Mac Studio can support up to eight.

Still a worthy investment

Thanks to the internet, everyone is a media creator nowadays, whether you’re tending to social media, making your own movies, producing music, shooting and editing photos, creating works of art, or developing software. The Mac Studio is the ideal Mac–it’s powerful, priced appropriately, has lots of ports for connecting devices, and it won’t take up a lot of desk space.

If you bought a Mac Studio last year, there’s little reason to upgrade, unless processing power is a never-ending search for you, or you need to connect more displays than what the 2022 Mac Studio can handle. If you can hold off until later 2024 or early 2025, we could get the M3 Max/Pro by then, and the M3’s new 3nm process promises to take Apple silicon beyond the 25 percent incremental improvement we usually get.

If you’ve been holding off on the Mac Studio all this time, what are you waiting for? The Mac Pro? Well, it’s here, have fun with it! Seriously, if the Mac Studio fits the bill when it first came out but you waited, you could keep waiting for the M3 I just mentioned. Or you can get one now and get some work done faster than ever before.

The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M2 Max–you get a great number of features and power, especially if you compare it to the M2 Pro Mac mini. The Mac Studio with Apple’s most powerful chip, the M2 Ultra, starts at $3,999.

Mac

If you’re a professional photographer or designer you need editing software that provides precision and control over your images, as well as support for editing RAW files and multi-layer editing tools.

The popularity of selfies and smartphone photography in recent years has given rise to dozens of affordable photo-editing programs aimed at amateur photographers. While these free (or low cost) apps are great for people who simply want to smarten up their selfies or holiday snaps, they may not offer the features pro photographers need to edit photos.

If you want to edit your photos like a pro – or you are a pro photographer, designer, web developer, graphic artist or other creative professional, then you may wish to consider one of these pro photo editors.

If you don’t quite consider yourself a pro, or you are just looking for a free or really cheap Photoshop alternative then check out our round up of free photo editing software for Mac.

That’s not to say we won’t be considering some excellent alternatives to Photoshop here.

Photoshop has always been the king of the photo-editing market. The sheer depth and range of Photoshop’s editing tools is still unrivalled, with the latest version boasting a new artificial intelligence features that can actually change the expression on a person’s face, or even make them look older (and balder).

However, Adobe’s decision to move its professional software products to a subscription payment system a few years ago antagonized many users, and opened the door to rival photo-editors that still just require a simple one-off payment, without committing you to a long-term subscription.

Rivals such as Pixelmator Pro and Affinity Photo can provide impressive editing tools for less, and while they may not match the sheer scope of Photoshop they will be more than adequate for many professional users and more serious amateur photographers. And don’t forget that most of these professional-level editing programs also provide a free trial – ranging from one week to a whole 90 days in some cases – so you can take your time deciding which program best suits your needs and your budget.

If you are also considering buying a new Mac read our guide to the best Mac for photo editing.

Read on for our guide to the best pro photo editors for Mac, including some excellent Photoshop alternatives.

Updated: May 15, 2023 to add Skylum Luminar Neo and update Adobe Lightroom.

Best photo editors for Mac

Mac, Personal Software