Category Archives: M4 Ultra

Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme

The Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme will set all new performance levels for music & video recording studios

Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra Tower – $??? Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra Rack – $???
Apple Mac Pro M4 Extreme Tower – $??? Apple Mac Pro M4 Extreme Rack – $???

If you’re a serious pro or amateur musician, you really want the Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra or the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max. A large music and/or video recording studio without budget restraints or someone who must have PCIe slot expansion may want to consider the Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra. These are the three best computers for creatives you can buy today.

If you absolutely must spend less than $1999.00, consider buying used, refurbished or consumer level Macs like the Macbook Air, iMac or Mac mini. To suggest buying less than an Apple M Series system is bad advice. Also see notes below in the Unified Memory section.

See: Apple Silicon is the DAW standard.

Seriously, by the time a new Mac Pro becomes available, it could be an M5 Series.

Information will be posted as it becomes available

Thanks!
–Yehuda

Manufacturer’s website
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro

Product support, downloads
https://support.apple.com

Videos

Apple related pages
Updated periodically – Apple Silicon is the DAW standard
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M1 Max & M1 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M4 Max & M4 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro & M1 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M2 Pro & M2 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M1
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M2 & M2 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M4 & M4 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Studio Display
Updated periodically – Apple M1 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M2 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M3 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M4 Processor Series

Follow on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda

This page is subject to content updates/additions. If you think any content should be updated or added, please leave a private comment on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda.

Apple Mac Studio M4 Max & M4 Ultra

The Mac Studio M4 Max/M4 Ultra will be the best choice for an Apple 2025 desktop for majority of musicians and creators

Apple Mac Studio M4 Max $1999.00 ??? – M4 Ultra $3999.00 ??? minimum per processor type

If you’re a serious pro or amateur musician, you really want the Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra or the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max. A large music and/or video recording studio without budget restraints or someone who must have PCIe slot expansion may want to consider the Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra. These are the three best computers for creatives you can buy today.

If you absolutely must spend less than $1999.00, consider buying used, refurbished or consumer level Macs like the Macbook Air, iMac or Mac mini. To suggest buying less than an Apple M Series system is bad advice. Also see notes below in the Unified Memory section.

See: Apple Silicon is the DAW standard.

M4 Series Mac Studio could be announced by June 2025 or earlier

Seriously, by the time a new Mac Studio becomes available, it could be an M5 Series.

According to Mark Gurman, there will be “A Mac Studio with a high-end M4 chip, coming around the middle of 2025”. He has also said there will be a refresh between March 2025 and June 2025. I find it hard to imagine Apple would let the Mac Studio (and Mac Pro) stagnate until mid 2025 but here we are.

Apple of course, is notoriously tight-lipped. Time will tell.

Information will be posted as it becomes available

Thanks!
-Yehuda

Manufacturer’s website
https://www.apple.com/mac-studio

Product support, downloads
https://support.apple.com

Videos

Yehuda Rothschild Apple Mac Studio M4 Series YouTube Playlist

Useful Links

Apple related pages
Updated periodically – Apple Silicon is the DAW standard
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M1 Max & M1 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M4 Max & M4 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro & M1 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M2 Pro & M2 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M1
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M2 & M2 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M4 & M4 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Studio Display
Updated periodically – Apple M1 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M2 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M3 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M4 Processor Series

Follow on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda

This page is subject to content updates/additions. If you think any content should be updated or added, please leave a private comment on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda.

Apple M4 Processor Series

Understanding the Apple M4 Series processors

The M4 Series is built on the N3E 3nm process. The low and mid tier M4 series Macs have arrived, with high-end systems expected by mid 2025.

TSMC who manufactures these chips for Apple, is also working on 2nm chips, expected in 2025. TSMC is also working on 1.6nm or 16 angstrom (angstroms are 10 times smaller than nanometer) or A16 chips, expected as soon as 2027. There are also plans for 1nm or 10 angstrom or A10 chips at a later date.

We must be getting closer to the limit of how far we can shrink these chips. A human hair is 80,000-100,000 nanometers wide. A single gold atom is about a third of a nanometer, so you would think a 1nm process must be awfully close to the limit.

Yehuda Rothschild Apple M4 Processor Series YouTube Channel

The brilliance of Apple silicon is the components of each one are the same. There are just more or less of them in each type.

Performance of the various M4 processors, just like their predecessors really will boil down to the base M4 processor performance. At this point specifications are wild guesstimates starting with M3 Series specifications.

** If you are browsing this page from a phone, you may want to view the following chart in landscape mode.

ComponentM4M4 ProM4 MaxM4 Ultra ?M4 Extreme ?
Efficiency CPU Cores4 or 644816
Efficiency Clock2.59GHz2.59GHz2.59GHz2.59GHz2.59GHz
Performance CPU Cores3 or 48 or 1010 or 1220 or 2440 or 48
Performance Clock4.52GHz4.52GHz4.52GHz4.52GHz4.52GHz
Neural Engine Cores1616163264
GPU Cores options8 or 1016 or 2032 or 4064 or 80128 or 160
Unified Memory options16GB 24GB 32GB24GB 48GB 64GB36GB 48GB 64GB 128GB72GB 96GB 128GB 256GB
Memory Bandwidth120GB/s273GB/s410GB/s or 546GB/s820GB/s or 1092GB/s
Video Decode Engines11124
Video Encode Engines11248
ProRes Encode-Decode Engines11248

Assuming a 2 year processor life cycle, before the end of 2026 the M4 Series should be history and fully replaced by the Apple M5 Processor Series in newly released products.

CPU & GPU Performance Benchmarks

Buying an Apple M4 Series computer

Any Apple M4 Series computer will be an incredible experience compared to music and video production on Intel hardware. However it is highly recommended to get at least 16GB of memory (or more) and 512GB storage (or more) if you select an M4 Series system.

There are 9 basic form factors of Apple macOS systems with M4 Series processors expected, 5 laptops and 4 desktops.

Thanks!
-Yehuda

Useful Links

Apple related pages
Updated periodically – Apple Silicon is the DAW standard
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M1 Max & M1 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M2 Max & M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Studio M4 Max & M4 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro & M1 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M2 Pro & M2 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M3 Pro & M3 Max
Updated periodically – Apple MacBook Pro M4 Pro & M4 Max
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra
Updated periodically – Apple Mac Pro M4 Ultra & M4 Extreme
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M1
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M2 & M2 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Mac mini M4 & M4 Pro
Updated periodically – Apple Studio Display
Updated periodically – Apple M1 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M2 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M3 Processor Series
Updated periodically – Apple M4 Processor Series

Follow on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda

This page is subject to content updates/additions. If you think any content should be updated or added, please leave a private comment on Mastodon – TurtleIsland.social/@Yehuda.