In 2025, Apple’s M4 Max Mac Studio is All Photographers Really Need

Mar 11, 2025

Jaron Schneider

A desktop setup featuring a silver computer, a monitor displaying a colorful screen, a camera on the left, and a white keyboard on a wooden desk.

Apple’s new Mac Studio with M3 Ultra is an impressive, powerful machine that is worthy of the “ultra” moniker. That said, it better be for the asking price. However, most photographers are probably better served getting the M4 Max version.

Last year, I praised the M4 Max chip in the MacBook Pro as providing a “notable jump in performance” versus previous Apple silicon iterations and that remains true in the desktop housing of the Mac Studio. In fact, while the chip and RAM are identical between the MacBook Pro I tested last fall and the Mac Studio tested this week — both pack 128GB of RAM — the Mac Studio’s larger housing and cooling system seems to be squeezing a bit more performance out, resulting in a computer that is significantly better than the best available Mac mini. While it can’t keep up with either the M2 Ultra or the M3 Ultra, the actual performance in real-world photo editing situations is minor.

Looking at the Lightroom benchmarks, when housed in the larger Mac Studio chassis, the M4 Max improves two out of three times (import times didn’t change, but both export times did). What we are seeing is that the M4 Max is not only better in desktop form than the exact same chip in a laptop, it’s better in Lightroom than the M2 Ultra which is an extremely powerful chip. This is especially impressive considering that the M4 Max Mac Studio costs $3,500 today while the M2 Ultra configuration I tested in 2023 cost $8,500.

Bar chart comparing Lightroom Classic import times for Sony a7R IV and PhaseOne XF on different Macs. M2 Ultra Mac Studio to M2 Max MacBook Pro. Sony a7R IV is faster across all models, with times ranging from 1.11s to 1.49s.

Bar chart comparing Lightroom Classic export times in seconds for Sony a7R IV and PhaseOne XF on different Mac models. Bars show M1 Ultra Mac Studio, M2 Ultra Mac Studio, M1 Pro Mac mini, 14 Max MacBook Pro for both cameras. Lower is better.

Bar graph comparing Lightroom Classic export times for 16-bit TIFF files. Two categories, "Sony a7R" and "PhaseOne XF," are shown across five devices. Each device's time is displayed in blue and red bars, respectively. Lower times are better.

Perhaps even more important to photographers is how good the M4 Max Mac Studio performs in Photoshop, too. We’re seeing a bit of an odd situation with the M3 Ultra in two different Photoshop benchmarks, as Jeremy explains in his review of the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, which means that at least today — until Adobe works on its optimizations for the fused-chip design of the Ultra — is that in Photoshop, the M4 Max Mac Studio is the computer to beat.

Bar chart titled "Pugetbench Photoshop - Overall Scores" shows various computers with scores. MSI Creator Z17 HX scores lowest at 1257.5, Mac Pro (Late 2023) scores highest at 2362.4. Horizontal bars in blue, indicating higher is better. — This mega chart features all of the computers PetaPixel has tested in Photoshop for several years, and the M4 Max Mac Studio remains the machine to beat.

It’s not like you have to make the choice to only edit photos if you forgo the M3 Ultra. The M4 Max is no slouch in either Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve benchmarks, outperforming the M2 Ultra Mac Studio in the former and coming close to its performance in the latter. The M4 Max Mac Studio also wipes the floor with the new Mac mini across the board, too. So as appealing as that tiny form factor is and as good as the M4 Pro chip can be, it’s just outclassed.

Bar chart comparing overall scores of various devices on Pugetbench Premiere. Devices include MacBooks, Mac Studios, Asus ProArt, Maingear, and Razor Blade. Scores range from 3030 to 12319, with the MSI Ultra Mac Studio having the highest score.

Bar chart showing Pugetbench DaVinci Resolve scores for various Apple devices. M3 Ultra Mac Studio scores highest at 11049, followed by M2 Ultra Mac Studio at 9130, and M2 Max MacBook Pro at 8726. Scores vary among other devices.

PetaPixel has also been testing the longevity of Apple’s computers since the transition to in-house silicon and gratefully, these new machines are showing much better performance over the long-term than Apple’s Intel-based machines did. Today, the original M1 is finally feeling outdated. M2 is still doing great, with the Max and Ultra versions of those chips still going strong. We fully anticipate a brand-new M4 Max to last for quite a while.

A tidy desk setup featuring a large monitor displaying a blue and white abstract background. Below, there's a keyboard and mouse. To the left, a camera, and to the right, a plush fox toy rests on a wooden shelf.

For the price, the M4 Max is a hot-rod of a computer, especially compared to the asking price of Apple’s Ultra chips. You could argue that the M4 Pro Mac mini is the desktop solution most photographers can get by with, the M3 Ultra Mac Studio is the computer many will want, but the M4 Max Mac Studio is probably the computer that most photographers will actually need.