Apple M1 Max vs. M1 Ultra, Tested: Apple's Top Desktop Chips Face Off
Our first impression of the Mac Studio was a positive one, but the M1 Max model we tested left us a little confused as to who it's for. Given that it offered such similar performance to the M1 Max-powered Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch, the lower-tier Mac Studio seemed a lot like repackaging existing capabilities rather than a major step forward for the Mac desktop.
But we knew we hadn’t gotten the full picture, since the Mac Studio offers far more than just a new box for the M1 Max. It’s also the first (and so far, the only) Mac to get the M1 Ultra, Apple’s top M1 CPU.
After days of testing in PC Labs, we can now definitively say how much more powerful the M1 Ultra is compared with the M1 Max. And, more important, we know which Mac Studio we're likely to be recommending to people who need real power.
When Apple announced its intentions of leaving Intel processors behind back in 2020, the stated aim was to “transition the Mac to [Apple’s] world-class custom silicon to deliver industry-leading performance and powerful new technologies,” and to “establish a common architecture across all Apple products.”
That journey started with the introduction of the M1 processor in the 2020 MacBook Air and Mac mini desktop. This was the first of Apple’s new in-house Mac processors, and the results were impressive.
First, the company shifted to an entirely new CPU architecture, pivoting from Intel’s x86 to ARM, the same technology Apple was already offering in its iPhone and iPad devices. ARM uses a simpler instruction set than x86, offering an immediate win in power efficiency, and giving Apple the chance to tailor the hardware and software to work perfectly together.
It also was Apple’s move to a unified system-on-chip (SoC) for the
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