If you're looking for the top Mac Studio from Apple, be ready to spend more than $14,000.

      Apple has just introduced its new Mac Studio along with the latest MacBook Air. This new Studio is available with either an M4 Max or an M3 Ultra chip, boasting impressive power that can compete with some top Macs, but it comes at a steep price. If you wish to fully customize it with all the options Apple provides, you’ll be looking at over $14,500 — a substantial jump from the previous model.

      The new Mac Studio is certainly impressive. The M4 Max setup begins with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. Additionally, it includes 36GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD storage, priced at $1,999 — the same as the last-gen Mac Studio with the M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips, so that remains consistent.

      The M3 Ultra version — which, despite the potentially misleading naming, offers greater performance — starts at $3,999. Again, this matches the previous generation's pricing, though the specifications have improved significantly. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio provides a 28-core CPU, a 32-core neural engine, and a 60-core GPU. The base model includes 96GB of unified memory and 1TB of SSD storage, marking a considerable upgrade from the M2 Ultra version.

      After this point, the prices continue to climb — or perhaps I should say, ascend.

      If you’re looking for the absolute best, this specific workstation requires upgrading to the M3 Ultra chip (complete with a 32-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and a 32-core neural engine). You would then select the 512GB unified memory upgrade, available only with the top-tier M3 Ultra, which costs $4,000 by itself. Finally, opting for 16TB of storage — another pricey enhancement — will increase the cost by $4,600 when moving from 1TB to 16TB.

      These hardware upgrades alone total a staggering $14,099. This price range is akin to that of the Mac Pro and is a notable increase from the prior generation, which reached a maximum of $8,799. You can raise the price slightly (because, at this point, why not?) by adding pre-installed software such as Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, bringing the grand total to $14,598.

      While $14,600 is a significant amount for any purchase, particularly for a PC, it’s important to remember that the Mac Studio targets professionals who genuinely require that level of power for their daily tasks. Nonetheless, Apple has certainly gone all out on pricing, with the jump from $8,799 to over $14,000 being quite substantial.