Mac Studio, Mac Pro Can Be Configured With The Exact Same Hardware, Including The M2 Ultra, And Still Have A $3,000 Price Difference

The new Mac Studio and Mac Pro can be kitted out with Apple’s most powerful custom silicon, the M2 Ultra , along with the other goodies, but what is perplexing is that customers can get the same internal specifications with both with a $3,000 price difference. Obviously, there is more to the story than what is being let on, but these findings may highlight the fact that Apple may not be giving the attention to its Mac Pro that it rightfully deserves.
Mac Pro still comes with more Thunderbolt 4 ports, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Mouse, but some consumers would still love to save that $3,000
First, let us talk about the price difference, and if you visit Apple’s online store right now and configure the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, you will notice it too. The one thing that we should appreciate Apple doing is giving consumers more choices because if they want a more compact machine as their daily driver rocking the most powerful M2 Ultra with a 24-core CPU and 76-core GPU, they have that option.
The Mac Studio’s total comes to $8,799, and with that, you get the maxed-out M2 Ultra, 192GB of unified RAM, and an 8TB SSD. With the Mac Pro, getting the exact same hardware gives you a grand total of $11,799 , resulting in a $3,000 difference. However, there are a few things to keep in mind; one, you are getting a Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard with the Mac Pro, along with a USB-C to Lightning cable.



Then again, those who order any one of these two machines would already own a keyboard and mouse accessories, so unless you are hard-wired to use the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse, you will have no complaints about using your existing peripherals. Another thing to note is that the Mac Studio offers a total of six Thunderbolt 4 ports; two at the front and four at the back. The Mac Pro, on the other hand, thanks to its larger size, is able to provide eight, along with an extra HDMI and Ethernet port.
Most potential buyers will still not view those extra ports on the Mac Pro as a worthwhile investment to spend the extra $3,000, but we should remind them that the workstation also features seven PCIe expansion slots. Unfortunately, at the most, you will be adding networking cards or upgrading storage because the Mac Pro will not support AMD Radeon GPUs  or any other graphics card for that matter, practically discouraging a large customer base from picking this up.



We also discussed a few hours ago that the Mac Pro announcement at the WWDC 2023 keynote was only two and a half minutes long , despite featuring Apple’s most powerful silicon to date. It appears that Apple’s lack of efforts towards the tower workstation can mean that it may phase it out in favor of more compact machines that are thermally capable of running the most powerful custom chips out there. The pricing difference can also suggest that the company is willing to charge its customers extra to get rid of the extra inventory it had of the Mac Pro chassis.
From a price-to-price comparison, the Mac Studio is the ‘no brainer’ deal but you should also note that this product cannot be upgraded down the line, so whatever configuration you choose on Apple’s online store will have to be used until the day you replace it. If consumers believe this is a small price to get a more compact and cheaper powerhouse, they will gladly take that decision.
Written by Omar Sohail