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Last year’s Mac Studio was the super-powered Mac mini many Apple fans were begging for. But, for the most demanding users, it was unclear if it was worth shelling out $3,999 for the high-end Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra chip, or if they should just wait for the inevitable Mac Pro refresh. Now that Apple has revamped the Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra chip, the company’s desktop lineup finally has something for everyone.

At the most basic level, there’s the $599 Mac Mini. If you need a bit more power, you can get that same slim machine with an M2 Pro chip for $1,299. Meanwhile, all-in-one fans have several iMacs to choose from, starting at $1,299 (though it’s probably worth waiting for an M2 spec bump).

That leaves the $1,999 Mac Studio as the ideal machine for Apple power users. It’ll be enough for video editing work, and it also comes standard with 32GB of RAM (it could use more than 512GB of storage, though). Step up to the $3,999 model with an M2 Ultra chip, and you’ve got a system that can destroy just about any task you put in front of it. The few professional users who need PCIe expansion can now opt for the M2 Ultra-equipped Mac Pro, which starts at an eye-watering $6,999.

All of sudden, the higher-end Mac Studio makes so much more sense. It has the same raw power as the Mac Pro, a ton of ports, and it won’t take up much room on your desk. What seemed like a curiosity last year, now feels like a tremendous value for power users. Funny how that works, isn’t it? (Apple reportedly shelved plans for an even more powerful M2 chip, which could have offered double the power of the M2 Ultra, according to Bloomberg.)

The base Mac Studio is now equipped with an M2 Max chip, featuring a 12-core CPU (with eight performance and four efficiency cores) and a 30-core GPU, as well as 32GB of RAM. Compared to last year’s M1 Max, the new chip has two more efficiency cores and six additional GPU cores. What’s most notable is the additional upgrade options: You can configure the M2 Max chip with a 38-core GPU and 96GB of RAM (previously you were capped at 32GB of memory).

Step up to the M2 Ultra and you effectively get two M2 Max chips: It starts with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU and 64GB of memory. If you want to truly push your system (and wallet) to the limit, the M2 Ultra can also be configured with a 76-core GPU and 192GB of RAM. With all that power, who needs a full-sized PC tower?

And really, that’s what I kept asking myself as I tested our review unit, which was equipped with an M2 Ultra and 192GB of RAM. The Mac Studio is so ridiculously overpowered, only the most demanding users would need the Mac Pro’s PCIe expansion. Since the M2 chips feature unified memory integrated alongside the CPU and GPU, there’s no way to add additional RAM down the line, which used to be another reason to get the Mac Pro. At least you can stuff the Mac Studio to the gills with RAM, if you need it.

None

Geekbench 5 CPU

Geekbench 5 Compute

Cinebench R23

3DMark Wildlife Extreme

Apple Mac Studio (Apple M2 Ultra, 2023)

2,013/28,402

121,938

1,743/28,665

46,046

Apple Mac Mini (Apple M2 Pro, 2022)

1,826/13,155

43,241

1,647/14,598

12,769

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (Apple M2 Max, 2023)

1,970/15,338

71,583

1,603/14,725

18 ,487

Apple Mac Studio (Apple M1 Ultra, 2022)

1,785/23,942

85,800

1,537/24,078

N/A

Much like the M2 Max-powered 14-inch MacBook Pro, Apple’s latest chips deliver noticeable performance increases over the M1 generation in just about every benchmark. But it’s also not significant enough to run out and replace an M1 system. Instead, the new Mac Studio is an even more tempting machine for Mac users still trucking along with Intel processors, even for some Mac Pro owners.

In the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark, the Mac Studio scored higher than any system we’ve tested this year. But really, that’s not a surprise – even last year’s M1 Ultra Mac Studio scored higher than the Razer Blade 16, which features Intel’s fastest mobile 13th-gen chip. Apple doesn’t always come out ahead: that Blade 16 beat the Mac Studio in the Geekbench 5 Compute benchmark, which you can chalk up to the NVIDIA RTX 4090 under the hood. Still, the Mac Studio’s multithreaded Cinebench R23 score (a test that mostly measures CPU performance) was more than double the Blade 16’s.

The new Mac Studio transcoded a 4K video file to 1080p using Handbrake in 21 seconds, three seconds faster than last year’s M1 Ultra model. That same job took the Razer Blade 16, the fastest PC we’ve seen this year, 26 seconds to complete. Scale that saved time up to a feature length project, or encoding jobs you’ll need to run several times a day, and the Mac Studio seems like a no-brainer upgrade for some creatives.

Years ago, some professionals would buy the Mac Pro for its sheer performance, while the internal expansion possibilities were more of an afterthought. The Mac Studio is a system made for them. And now, thanks to Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, external storage options are fast enough to deal with the demands of a video production shop.

The Mac Studio certainly won’t leave you wanting when it comes to ports: On the rear, it features four USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Type A connections, 10Gbps Ethernet, full-sized HDMI and a headphone jack. There are also two USB-C ports on the front (USB 3 by default, Thunderbolt 4 on the M2 Ultra), alongside a full-sized SD card slot. Just like last year, video editors I’ve spoken with said they’d prefer a headphone jack on the front, but at least it’s easy to get behind the Studio to plug things in. Given the user this machine is aimed at, it also would have been nice to get Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front for every configuration.

Physically, the Studio is no different than what we saw last year. It’s a beautifully polished box that looks like two Mac minis stacked together. It’s far more prominent than that slim desktop, but for Apple devotees, that may be more of a feature than a bug. Now that it no longer seems like a stopgap solution for people eagerly waiting for an upgraded Mac Pro, the Mac Studio looks like the purest expression of what Apple wants a desktop to be in 2023. Why fiddle around with internal hardware when the package Apple delivers is so fully featured?

As I said in my review last year, the Mac Studio isn’t meant for everyone: It’s a system targeted at people who know their demands are lightyears beyond mainstream users. They won’t balk at a $1,999 starting price, or even the $3,999 for the M2 Ultra model, if it means they’ll be able to deliver projects faster. On the PC side, you’ve got alternatives like Intel’s NUC Extreme small-form factor desktop, but that system has ballooned in size so much that you can’t really compare it to the Mac Studio.

I’ve gone from being intrigued by the Mac Studio to truly impressed. It continues to blow PCs away when it comes to heavy-duty work, and it has so much connectivity I don’t miss the lack of internal expansion. It’s more than just the big Mac mini – it’s a compact Mac Pro that many creatives can actually afford.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-mac-studio-review-m2-ultra-2023-170007838.html?src=rss 

I’m worried about Saga Anderson. She’s a seasoned FBI agent investigating a string of ritualistic deaths around Cauldron Lake, and she’s a little too impressed by all the supernatural gore she encounters. At one point, she’s talking to her partner about the cult activity they’ve seen – the dismembered body parts and necromancy and murderous villagers roaming the forests – and she says, “this place just keeps getting crazier… but this is exciting.”

A few scenes later, she’s shoving a heart through a portal to another realm and inviting a witch to show her “the terror.”

So, yeah, I’m nervous about Saga’s fate in Alan Wake II – and that only makes me more excited for the full game. I saw a 30-minute hands-off preview of Alan Wake II at Summer Game Fest, set in the second chapter. By this time, Saga has made her peace with the paranormal darkness of the case she’s investigating; she’s already pulled a manuscript page out of a corpse’s chest cavity and followed its instructions to Cauldron Lake, the setting of the original game.

Alan Wake came out 13 years ago, and the timeline in the sequel has also progressed 13 years. The writer Alan Wake has been missing that whole time, and Saga is hunting the ghost of FBI agent Robert Nightingale, who was killed at the end of the first game. In chapter two, Saga and her partner are deep in the Pacific Northwest woods. The preview shows off gorgeous lighting, character models and environments, plus satisfying-looking gunplay and flashlight-play.

Dialogue scenes between Saga and her partner aren’t rushed, establishing the narrative and letting it breathe, and there are a few moments where players can choose how to respond. The two agents split up and there are a series of simple puzzles for Saga to solve, like collecting a fuse or finding the right numbers to crack a lock, all while a sense of dread constantly builds in the background. The preview provides some serious early Resident Evil vibes — Alan Wake II is a survival-horror experience, while the original was an action-thriller.

As Saga attempts to solve the mysteries around her, she can jump into her Mind Place (no, not Mind Palace) to organize clues and connect the dots. Her Mind Place looks like the living room of a ’90s conspiracy theorist, with photos and notes connected by red string along one wood-paneled wall. This is where Saga can manipulate the evidence she’s found, placing clues near each other to see if they’re related, unlocking the path forward. If she gets stuck, she can go to the desk in the center of the room and commune with her subjects, asking them for answers based on the clues she’s gathered; this is called Profiling. Saga can enter her Mind Place at any time.

There are a few jump-scares in the preview, where the screen quickly cuts to a screaming face or an enemy suddenly bursts through a doorway, but they’re well placed and not overdone. Saga feels capable and curious – maybe a little too curious for her own good, but we’ll have to see how that plays out in the full game. At the end of the preview, Alan suddenly appears in the woods with Saga, screaming about dark forces and confused by how long he’s been missing.

The big innovation in Alan Wake II is the ability to swap between Saga and Alan himself, playing as both characters throughout the game. Chapter one begins with Saga in the driver’s seat, and after that players can choose to play as her or Alan at the beginning of each new section. A Remedy spokesperson said developers are still fine-tuning the swap mechanic; they don’t necessarily want to give players the ability to change characters every five minutes, for the sake of the narrative flow, but they still want to provide real instances of meaningful choice.

Alan Wake II is a contained single-player experience and it doesn’t have a bunch of side quests, according to Remedy. There are a few errands to complete and secrets to find parallel to the main story, but this is first-and-foremost a linear, narrative-driven game. 

There were plenty of sequels at the Summer Game Fest showcase, and Alan Wake II stands out in this crowded field. The preview showcased a clear vision: Alan Wake II retains the themes of the original game, but introduces a fresh perspective with the protagonist, mechanics and genre. It feels like Remedy knows the story it’s trying to tell — even if Alan and Saga don’t.

Alan Wake II is due to hit PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on October 17th.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/alan-wake-ii-stands-out-in-a-sea-of-sequels-140010178.html?src=rss