Mac Studio & Studio Display - Bringup

[rasterdogs]

By early April I received the Mac Studio (M1 Max, 10/24 cores, 32 GB Ram, 2TB SSD) and the Studio Display.

I used Migration Assistant to move from my 2017 iMac 27" to the new system. The process went smoothly. There was one frustrating point of confusion with my legacy Apple Mouse, Magic Keyboard & Trackpad being recognized by Bluetooth on the iMac and the Mac Studio. The work-around when switching back and forth between the 2 systems was to connect the systems with lightning cables to the Kybd, and Trackpad.

This new system is a nice, though subtle improvement over the iMac.

Mainly I use the system for Adobe LR and Photoshop with LR being my main focus. Normal LR uses are not significantly different than they were on my iMac but image file import/ export is quicker. (I don’t do many panos, HDR combos, or focus stacking, most of my files are Fuji micro 4/3rds.)
The system is overall smoother and boots far more quickly than did the iMac.
I haven’t seen any beachballs.
The system is dead quiet unless I turn my hearing aids WAY up. 

I"ve loaded up Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, Excell, a bunch of Safari instances, and the Apple Shortcuts app and haven’t seen memory pressure greater than 20%.

None of the temp sensors via the iStat app are greater than 40 C. Total Power I’ve seen is < 15 Watts.
The Studio Display’s visual quality is pretty much akin to the iMac, the speakers are very good but not as good as my Audio Engine A2’s. The Studio Display camera is substandard.
The overall Studio Display design quality is excellent.

Between the ports on the Mac Studio and the Studio Display I’ve now got ports up the Wazoo!

After a week’s experience transitioning from the iMac and using the Mac Studio + Studio Display system I’m pleased.

[Chris L]

Thanks for the info and it sounds like it is working out for you. I will be buying a Mac Studio to replace my 2010 Mac Pro 2x2.66 6 Core Intel Xeon machine with 128 Gb of memory, a Radeon RX 580 8 GB Graphics Card, and Running Mojave. I replaced the HD last year but do not have an SSD. It works pretty well for both Capture One, Photoshop, and FCPx 4k video. My thought was to replace it with the $2,800 Mac Studio Max 10 Core CPU, 64 gb Ram, 32 Core GPU, 1 TB SSD. My guess is even though I will have less Ram the Mac Studio will at least be slightly faster than my current Mac Pro that seems to be slowing down. I will be pairing it with my very old NEC PA 241w. If anyone wants to chime in on my plan it would be appreciated. I really don't want to spend anymore $$$ than 3K.

[Peter McLennan]

My new arrival (and my first Mac) is a Studio Max with 64GB of RAM and the low spec CPU. My only regret is not springing for the 2TB SSD.   Not that I've had any issues, but 1TB will probably seem paltry in a few years.  I'm operating it on a 32" Asus IPS panel, which is very satisfying.

Performance is nearly identical to my W10 64GB Ryzen 9 with an RTX 3060.  In fact the Mac is (arm-wave) about 20% slower than the Windows machine while rendering a simple Blender test.  In Resolve I see similar timeline fluidity, effects processing and rendering time on both machines. 

Frankly, I expected more from the Mac, given all the M1 hype. I'm hopeful that software will be better optimized for Apple silicon in the future.

The leap from three decades of Windows to MacOS is a big one. Lots to both learn and unlearn.

[red2]

Thanks for the info and it sounds like it is working out for you. I will be buying a Mac Studio to replace my 2010 Mac Pro 2x2.66 6 Core Intel Xeon machine with 128 Gb of memory, a Radeon RX 580 8 GB Graphics Card, and Running Mojave. I replaced the HD last year but do not have an SSD. It works pretty well for both Capture One, Photoshop, and FCPx 4k video. My thought was to replace it with the $2,800 Mac Studio Max 10 Core CPU, 64 gb Ram, 32 Core GPU, 1 TB SSD. My guess is even though I will have less Ram the Mac Studio will at least be slightly faster than my current Mac Pro that seems to be slowing down. I will be pairing it with my very old NEC PA 241w. If anyone wants to chime in on my plan it would be appreciated. I really don't want to spend anymore $$$ than 3K.

I'm in a similar situation. I am currently using my mid-2010 Mac Pro (48GB RAM, SSD for system and apps) with the same graphics card and OS version you have. Also a similar monitor (mine is PA271W). Still works pretty well. If you haven't done so already, you might want to look through an earlier thread on the topic of attaching NEC monitors (not necessarily applicable to yours) to M1 macs:
(https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=140541.0).
I haven't done anything yet, but I'll probably spring for the Apple Studio Display when I do. Higher resolution, and my PA271 is pretty old.

[Chris L]

I'm in a similar situation. I am currently using my mid-2010 Mac Pro (48GB RAM, SSD for system and apps) with the same graphics card and OS version you have. Also a similar monitor (mine is PA271W). Still works pretty well. If you haven't done so already, you might want to look through an earlier thread on the topic of attaching NEC monitors (not necessarily applicable to yours) to M1 macs:
(https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=140541.0).
I haven't done anything yet, but I'll probably spring for the Apple Studio Display when I do. Higher resolution, and my PA271 is pretty old.

thanks, I just went to that thread