The Mac FAQ
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@leemoon_c43b45a114 > The M3 Ultra has 28 or 32 CPU cores, the M4 Max 14 or 16.
Arstechnica has published their review:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/m4-max-and-m3-ultra-mac-studio-review-a-weird-update-but-it-mostly-works/
For Daz Studio, these are just guesses on my part (I don't have 2500 € to get a Mac Studio M4 Max, let alone the 5000 € asked for an M3 Ultra) but:
In the end, I don't understand why Apple chose to do what they did? Why not use an M4 Ultra instead of creating such a strange situation for the people who have the budget to get an Ultra. Maybe they are keeping the M4 Ultra for the Mac Pro.
I have been reading that the M4 chip is faster on what they call "Single core tasks," Or something like that. But I'm wondering if the M3 ultra chip is maxed out, Will that version still be slower? And if it is slower, Would it be so much slower that it would make a big difference? There seem to be other features to the M3 ultra that are superior to the M4 chip, because it's just a single chip, not two chips join together, as in the ultra version. For example, in terms of AI, And running AI apps, the ultra version might be superior. Also, in terms of AI features, especially as Apple increases AI features, I'm suspecting that the M3 ultra might be superior.
done with speech to text. Hard to correct little imperfections on my iPhone. Please excuse the little imperfections. if I were hand typing, I could do better than this. But I think this is readable and understandable.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-replaced-my-windows-pc-with-a-mac-studio-here-are-my-takeaways-after-24-hours/
here's an interesting review that contrast using the Mac studio with using a Windows PC. It's written by a long time windows user.
@Elor and @inquire:
Thanks for the links to more reviews.
Elor saved me the trouble of going back to see the core counts re: M3 Ultra vs. M4 Max. Doubling the number of (slower) cores on the M3 Ultra does give it an advantage over the (faster) cores of the M4 Max.
I did see the Geekbench benchmark comparing the single core performance of the M3 Ultra and M4 Max. M4 Max averaged 4,111 compared to M3 Ultra's average score of 3,256. Because of substantially more cores in the M3 Ultra, it easily can outperform the M4 Max with apps utilizing multiple cores. The DAZ Studio single threaded processes would be slower on the M3 Ultra, but anything taking advantage of using more cores at once, like Iray, would see a performance advantage on the Ultra. It's not like the M3 Ultra is pokey in single-core performance at all, it's just that the M4 Max appears to be about 25% better performing on a single core.
My thoughts are aligned with Elor's conclusions above.
Still, I'm waffling between the top M4 Max chip and the 28-core M3 Ultra. Either way, I'd get an 8TB model and the lowest RAM at or above 96GB.
DAZ Studio is really the most demanding app that I use on a daily basis, so I can get away with the base M4 chipset for everything else - music creation, image editing, light video editing, writing, etc. Even DS runs better on base M4 than my older Macs. It's disappointing to have no feel for what the new DS for Mac will support (native Apple Silicon performance/compatibility, Filament, stability and UI clean ups, etc.) Iray rendering will remain okay, not great, but nothing to cheer about due to Macs not having Nvidia GPUs or some Apple Silicon GPU optimized version of Iray (not going to happen.) Filament and other generalized renderers (Cycles, etc.) such as what Blender uses could boost DS rendering performance on PCs without Nvidia GPUs and Macs. But then you'd need materials converted to the new render engine or start with replacing existing Iray materials to something compatible. You'd need a materials/surfaces translator to accomplish that, I suspect. If one existed.
I'm still going back and forth about getting (soon) a top spec M4 Pro Mac mini or a mid spec M4 Max/M3 Ultra Mac Studio. If I absolutely had to choose today with the current DS, I'd probably go M4 Pro Mac Mini. Why? Certainly current Mac DS would get some improved rendering speed, but it's crippled by the older Qt cross platform development system it's built with. My hope is that new DS will gain compatibility with Apple Silicon and benefit from the features that those processors embody.
Lee
P.S. My new M4 MacBook Air arrived today. Everything (~1.7TB) transferred from the new M4 iMac to the MacBook Air in about 30 minutes via Thunderbolt 5 (overkill) cable. Very slight Iray rendering speed difference between the 2 Macs (~4 seconds between the 2 doing identical renders.) Longer renders would slow down the MacBook Air more due to the fanless design, but good enough for me doing quick renders, character dial-ups, etc. away from my desk. Very happy with both new M4 Macs. I'd still like to have my dream machine of a new iMac Pro, as I'm a fan of the all-in-one design. Not sure that dream will ever come to be either. LOL!
My Mac Mini M4 Pro has 14 cores, with 4 reserved for 'efficiency' and 10 for 'performance', just to be clear.
I'm truly leaning towards the Mac mini M4 Pro 14-core with 64GB RAM and 8TB SSD. Both my new base M4 chip Macs have 6 efficiency and 4 performance cores. Having 10 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores would yield a nice boost.
Though it would primarily serve as a storage hub for my files (hence the 8TB SSD), I can see myself using it for DAZ Studio and letting the other M4 Macs satisfy my non-rendering needs.
Mary, if you don't mind, could you let me know how you like the Mac mini after using it for a while? I'd appreciate the info, but would understand completely if you don't have the time. :)
Lee
My primary reason for buying the M4 Mac Mini was to replace my 2013 iMac which had an Nvidia 660. That was the first computer I had installed D|S on in 2016, version 4.7, but within a week or so, 4.8 was released. I was okay but had no clue what I was doing with D|S then. That computer was used for business and editing with Office 365. Then the 660 was dropped by Nvidia and in my ignorance I tried to force an update and destroyed my OS. I ended up taking the iMac to the Apple store and they reinstalled the OS, but I lost everything that had been on it, except a few files on a stick. So D|S went onto Windows computers. I had used two HP monitors with the iMac. One is now on the Mac Mini and the other is attached to my MacBook Pro M2.
But my iMac has been dying gradually the past few years and I have been saving for an upgrade. So I jumped on the Mac Mini M4 Pro and the Studio Display. (I have cataracts forming in both eyes now, so I need really good monitors.) At first my own confusion gave me some fits, but Totte helped me. Poor man, I really drive him crazy.
The Mini's hardrive is 4Tb and I have my old iMac files and program files on that. Still have 3.11 Tb free. I will download other programs later here.
I have a 24Tb external hard drive where I installed my Daz Studio product files. I am still installing from DIM my products, limited by an allotment of 1.29Tb/monthly that I share with a flatmate, cats who watch YouTube, and my streaming. So far, only filled up 5.68 Tb and have 18.32 Tb left. I now have over 24,000 products with 2.8Tb installed, and 2.2Tb left to pick out what I want to install still. I restrict myself to 30 - 40GBs a day. Edit to add: I have barely started to add my other store purchases and freebies.
I haven't had much time to play with Daz on the computer, most of my time is spent fixing metadata, thumbnails, and inspecting each item as it is installed or has gone missing. I have been having problems with DIM crashing in the past week and losing track of products I thought were installed, to find them back in Ready to Download. I tried to do something in US2 the other night and found I had forgotten how to do anything again. Will have to go over the tutorial again. Along with many others.
What I have found, DIM works really nice generally. Downloads of course depends on interactions with the web and DAZ servers, but with the file downloaded, the installation of a 1 or 2 GB file goes super fast. I made a purchase of multiple items today that totalled 1Gb and flicked my eyes away and back and it was done. Time of day helps too.
I am being selective on installing characters/morphs that I own, so loading up a character does not take a long time. I have installed the Genesis Core characters and a few PA characters/morphs that I love and main morph packs. Same for pose packs, realism counts and with Bone Minion no generation is restricted to one only. I am picking my wardrobe with more realistic clothing, leaving all the skimpwear/fantasy uninstalled. Shaders and sets are a love and I have many. That is what is taking so long now, especially with the PBR materials. Scripts, plugins, key morphs are done.
Scripts use are a challenge, but that is my learning curve again. Before setting up this computer I had just finished setting up a Win 11 laptop with Daz Studio. So it has been almost nine months of installations without fun or lengthy use. I learn by doing repeatedly. But I am making headway there with everyone's advice and help.
Compared to my MacBook Pro M2, the Mac Mini Pro M4 is faster, but compared to the Win 11 with Nvidia RTX 4080, not so much as my test showed. And of course, no filament. I love filament.
And it is small and light. But that monitor, I can barely lift it. In the box, I can't. Security had to carry it from the Apple store to my van, and my flatmate to our 2nd story apartment. I can barely lift the empty box. Seriously bad lower back. That monitor should come with a warning label. I could carry the iMac in its case. The MacBook Pro was bought because I needed a computer I could carry to other locations to work on my editing. Gaming computers are too heavy now for me to carry easily in a backpack. Aging is a pain, not just for computers.
Mary
Now there's a Delay in Apple Intelligence and improvements to Siri. I don't think it's likely, but is there any chance that if I bought a max studio now, it would be obsolete in a year or two because Apple would release some new hardware that would be necessary for Apple Intelligence? Should the Mac studio be able to handle future improvements to Apple Intelligence and Siri? I realize this is asking for an opinion, but what do people think?
I doubt it would be "obsolete" in two years(Apple is generally pretty good about supporting HW for 5 or so years). It will just less capable than what will be available in two years. Over many years I've learned to not buy hardware (or software) on thepremise of "future" capabilities. You don't notice when it does get delivered but do notice when it doesn't.
@memcneil70
Thank you so very much for replying!
I went the opposite way a very few years ago and picked up an HP Omen 40L (low-ish end gaming PC) and replicated my Mac DAZ files onto it. It went quite smoothly, but I think that was just dumb luck on my part. :) The HP worked great, but I prefer the Mac experience. Always felt like I was tending to Windows needs with the constant updates. I think Windows 7 was the last time I'd used Windows and I felt like Windows 11 was behaving more like a social media app. LOL
Anyway, I used the HP off and on for rendering, while still preferring to do the main work on my Macs. Then a Windows update and/or Nvidia driver update caused the HP to boot up to a black screen. Only way around it was to force it into safe mode and uninstall the RTX 3060's driver, boot normally, re-install the driver and have the HP boot normally again. For about a week. Then it starts all over again. Have tried different Nvidia studio drivers, but they will eventually cause the black screen at boot up (screen goes black just as it's getting ready to show the desktop.) The frustration with that caused me to abandon the PC. It sits by itself in another room now. :)
As one would suspect by transferring everything between similar systems, I had a mindlessly simple and quick migration between the M1 iMac and the new M4 iMac. Yesterday, I transferred everything from the M4 iMac to my just delivered M4 MacBook Air. Everything was super easy and quick thanks to using a Thunderbolt cable between the 2 Macs. Migration Assistant took around 30 minutes to transfer 1.7-ish TB of data and then I had a duplicate of my M4 iMac on the new MacBook Air. Started playing with the MacBook Air and loved how well it ran DAZ Studio relative to the new iMac. Just a few seconds slower than the iMac, so around twice as fast as my old M1 Macs could do. The MacBook Air does get pretty warm when rendering, as expected with a fanless design. My use of the MacBook Air is really for doing lighter DS tasks when I'm away from my home office desk. Then I can do the heavier lifting on the iMac. Or soon to be M4 Pro Mac mini very similar to what you currently have. Your wonderful reply has helped me lean into the Mac mini as my next Mac, completing my home office set up. I'll be giving away my M1 iMac and Intel i9 16" MacBook Pro to friends or family. My M1 MacBook Air will get traded in to Apple for credit on the new Mac. I'll be all Apple Silicon and in the M4 chip family across all the Macs. I am very delighted with the performance on M4 for all the tasks/apps that I use. Though I haven't used it heavily yet, I find that Pixelmator Pro (now owned by Apple) works quite well and in some cases better than Photoshop Elements (2020). The native code for Mac lets Pixelmator Pro fly, especially when using the Machine Learning powered tools.
For sure, DAZ Studio is showing how far behind it is compared to other apps on the Mac. I hope DAZ developers can get the new major version running natively on the M-series chips. And clean up the UI to make it look nice and readable again. Also: Filament. I really want to use Filament and Filatoon stuff on the Macs. I dabbled with it on the PC and it is wonderful.
To DAZ development team's credit, DS 4 does run on the Macs, but it is running within Rosetta and is getting a performance hit from that alone. The graphics in the UI are usable but are hard to read. Not sure if we'll see a boost in Iray CPU rendering if DS is freed from Rosetta emulation, but that would be most welcome.
Like you, I intend to go with the Apple Studio Display. I plan on getting the height and tilt adjustable version to help get the viewing angles just right for my own tired eyes. My home office is upstairs, so I need to lug all the gear up one flight of staris. The Mac mini will be no effort at all, the Studio Display might be another thing. :) I have partial kidney failure (one kidney is perfect, the other has partial function after scarring from laser surgery to remove a kidney stone.) And I suffer from hemiplegic migraines that are truly the most awful and painful things I've experienced in my life. They started when I was 9 years old and I'm coming up on 67 in a few months. I've had Apple store employees bring my newly purchased big boy Macs out to my car. I've always appreciated that very much. Apple tends to go out of their way to make sure those of us in non-perfect health are taken care of. :)
Mary, thank you for taking the time to write up such a gracious and informative reply about your experiences! I really appreciate learning how DS and your new Mac mini fit into your life, beyond benchmarks. I hope you continue to enjoy everything and more so in the days ahead. Take care of yourself, your friends, and other loved ones!
Lee
Lee you are most welcome. I am glad that my experiences were helpful.
I almost destroyed my Win 10 laptop with the Jan 2025 Nvidia update. It tried to install it and crashed the graphics totally. I had to brave safe mode and reinstalling the Dec 2024 drivers. It worked but I was worried. My Win 10 desktop refused to even try to install it. But with Windows 10 no longer supported after this fall, and D|S installed now on five computers, I think I will be retiring them. They can join my other two older laptops that are just stored away. The Win 11 laptop will do my filament work. I am also going to be reducing my footprint in the apartment, I took over the living room and want to find space in my small bedroom.
And you are just a young pup! I am 72 and all the car accidents, damage, and screwball things I have done to my body have come home to roost. But then, when we turn 21 the warranty runs out on our bodies.
Mary
Well, now, to tell you frankly, I'm confused. I feel more impressed by the Mac studio with the M3 ultra chip, but others seem to favor the M4 chip. I really don't know what to buy. The M4 chip might be faster in setting up a scene and moving characters around, I think. But the M3 ultra chip might be faster in rendering scenes? Is that it?
I usually work slowly in setting up scenes. I usually stop and think after each little change, so I don't necessarily need a quick update, Speed. But I would appreciate a faster rendering Speed. Things are going pretty slowly now on my 2013 McIntosh pro. And even when I'm working with Genesis 9 figures, There's often a delay between every little movement of the figure I make. I think that's because the Genesis 9 figures must have so many more parts to them, so that even a couple of figures seems to require so much memory.
Yes, I need help in reasoning this out and deciding what to do. I wish, as someone else wished, that DAZ studio could run natively and not in Emulation, and that I knew how DAZ studio five Was going to work. Indeed, I have been hoping that DAZ studio five, Or Whatever they're going to call it, Would be released before I bought my next computer.
I'm starting to wish that I had never heard of Daz Studio, or of Apple, computer, which seemed so far ahead back in the early part of the century, but now seems years behind In AI. It looks like Apple has made a big mistake in announcing all of the features for the iPhone 16, and then pulling back on what is actually possible. I believe, as others have written, That what was once "The most valued company" Has seriously damaged its reputation.
And to think that I almost turned in my iPhone 15+ and went and bought an iPhone 16 Max. Now I'm glad I didn't do that. Not buying was a smart move. so I'm wondering if not buying another Macintosh computer at this point might be a smart move. And frankly, being depressed about DAZ studio, I'm wondering if just forgetting all about DAZ Studio might just be another smart move. Maybe I need to practice meditation, and "empty my mind." Look at the grief Some people are having with DAZ studio.
Again, speech to text on the iPhone 15+ does not always capitalize or punctuate properly. I've tried to clean some of these errors up.
@inquire, what everyone needs to considers is what makes them happy. When I get a chance to work in D|S, I love to put a render together like you. My actual good renders are maybe 1 out of 100. But I am okay with that. Yesterday I was able to do one I posted in another thread. It took hours to set up due to lighting the Rottweiler, but 14 minutes to render. That was my challenge to myself. I was happy. That was a good day.
What makes you happy? It may or may not be the end result but the path there. The tools (computers) you use are your choice. You don't have to get into a race to keep up with anyone. I had an old iMac that was honestly failing that I had been nursing along, but I love how the Apple computers work. I watched three years of computers and was not happy what I saw, I was happy with the M4. This might be my last computer.
I actually had no plan to use my Mac Mini M4 Pro as a Daz computer. It was your request for a test of how it rendered the test scene that had me loading my library up! It is work, but I am almost done now. I actually buy computers with it in the back of my mind how a computer can handle graphics now. If it can do that, it can handle Office 365.
Many folks on the forums are doing incredible work with very old computers, including the PAs, and while they might buy a newer model, finances restrict them. If I had had an inkling of what this year was going to bring, I might have not invested in this computer now.
And my iPhone is from the spring of 2021. I have no interest in the newer phones. AI, no thank you.
Mary
https://www.engadget.com/computing/apple-mac-studio-m4-max-review-a-creative-powerhouse-123000265.html
this review makes a comparison between the Mac studio with an M4 chip and one with an M3 ultra chip. And it also makes comparisons with other recent McIntosh releases.
@memcneil70: thanks so much for your response. Alas, my 2013 late edition McIntosh pro is Getting slow to use, especially with the Genesis 9 figures Also a couple of days ago I had deleted something from my iPhone 15+ But then I saw it in the trash on the Macintosh desktop. I tried deleting it; It came right back This happened over and over again. I called Apple tech-support The agent there helped me to delete it, He then said that the communication protocol that the McIntosh OS 12.7.6 is using is so outdated that it doesn't communicate as it should with the other Apple devices. And he said there really isn't much support for that computer or that OS version any longer. So yes, I think it's time. I consider another Macintosh computer.
So you are where I was, and I expect many Mac users are or have been. It is a hard, expensive decision. Especially now if you live in the U.S.A.
Well, am I reading this thing wrong in a comparison between the M4 chip Mac studio and the M3 ultra chip Mac Studio? It looks to me as though the M3 ultra version has more features, while, yes, being slower in terms of single core speed.
Would I be happier with the M4 version?
But as I've said before, if the M3 ultra version is faster when it comes to rendering, that seems to be what I'd want. If it's a little slower when it comes to things like loading characters or moving characters around slightly to change their poses, I don't think that matters to me because I generally work slowly there. I generally stop and look and maybe tilt the camera angles and view the scene from different angles Including above, right, left , and so on. But if I go to rendering, I do want the rendering to be as fast as possible.
I don't want the present situation that I'm experiencing with Genesis. 9 figures, which is that if I try to move them, there really is a delay and I'll see a spinning cursor. If I use Genesis 8, or earlier figures, that doesn't happen.
So hopefully people will comment on this feature of the M4 versus the M3 chips: For someone such as myself, might the M3 ultra version of the max studio be the thing for me?
Or am I just not seen something correctly? I'd hate to make a mistake in what I Purchase.
again, using speech to text here, sorry for any mistakes in punctuation or capitalization. I've corrected most of them. It's just so much easier on the iPhone 15+ to use speech to text.
@leemoon_c43b45a114: Lee, what do you think? Could the M4 version of the Mac Studio be better for one kind of person, and the M3ultra version be better for another? Or do you think M4 is the way to go across the board for users of DAZ Studio?
With all due respect, I think you might be twisting yourself into knots for nothing. If you're coming from a 2013 machine, your rendering speed is probably going to be 5-10x better.
I don't think you're going to see very significant render speed differences between the two machine, not in DAZ Studio, not unless you're spending more time testing rendering speeds than you are just enjoying making images. There are those whose hobby is tweaking their render settings for best results in speed and photorealism, but that's different than just enjoying using DAZ Studio. There's nothing wrong with it, but to me it almost seems like two different hobbies that both use DAZ Studio.
I, personally, would go with whichever of the two machines allow you to buy more RAM, pricewise. I'm a firm believer that more RAM translates into overall better stability, and stability is, in my opinion, more important than render speed.
I've been using Macs since 1984, when they first came out. I used Windows machines approximately 35-40 houres a week for the last 17 years before I retired. I much prefer Macs, but if I had a business that required DAZ Studio renders, I wouldn't hesitate to get the best Windows set-up I could. I, luckily, don't require the fastest possible DAZ Studio renders, so I can sit back and just enjoy my Mac. I have nothing against Windows, but as I've posted elsewhere, using Windows is like wearing a really good pair of runners that don't quite fit properly.
Unless DAZ gives up on Macs completely (e.g. they don't generate enough profit to support), they will, eventually, provide a version that's Apple Silicon native. So far, since the M1 chips first came out, I believe the conservative, estimated speed-bump that's experienced when an application goes silicon-native is roughly 10-15%. It's a "free" speed increase, and it'll make things a little zippier, but don't expect it to make any huge differences in your rendering speeds. Unless DAZ implements a new rendering engine that fully supports metal, you're probalby going to be using iRay and (someday) Filament for the foreseeable future.
The next version of DAZ Studio will probably be released sooner rather than later, as they'll need to support the new video cards for iRay; hopefully they'll release a Mac version of the next DAZ Studio, but that's not a given. It'll come if or when it comes, but I wouldn't hold back just to see what it's going to be. Whatever is released, you'll either keep using the version of DAZ Studio you have, you'll use the new version or you'll decide to start shifting your work to another package, like Blender, which so many users are doing. I tested Blender myself earlier this week and found moving some DAZ characters to Blender worked very smoothly, without a hitch for some Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 characters.
Just after the M1 chips were released, I was in need of a laptop that would run DAZ Studio (I was spending 50-55 hours in front of my work iMac and I wanted to get away from the machine and desk to "play") so instead of an M1 MacBook Air, I bought one of the last Intel machines they made. I wish I'd waited, as work didn't allow me as much time to use it as I'd hoped.
I eventually bought an M1 iMac as soon as they came out, and loved it. While I was getting renders three or four times faster then with my 2012 iMac, I found that just working with the software was so much faster and smoother. I don't use iRay or things like dForce, so the machine's only drawback was the maximum 16 gigabytes of RAM.
My daughter needed a larger, clearer screen for her work so I gave her my iMac and got myself a MacBook Pro M4 Pro with an external Dell 4K monitor (I really, really wish Apple would make more lower-end monitors, the 27" 4K Dell isn't as clear as tre 21" iMac screen was) and 48 megabytes of RAM.
Speedwise, it won't render an iRay scene anywhere near as fast as a Windows machine with an nVidia card, but for me that's not a problem.
I don't know if this will help at all as I doubt these are the kinds of images you're making, but I took a decade-old scene with 20 G3 figures, each with mostly-toon hair, toon eyebrows and at least three pieces of clothing each; the scene took 4 minutes and 15 seconds to load, but again, 20+ figures with hair and clothing. Loading any one of the figures on their own, with clothing and hair takes about 15-16 seconds. LIghting was Uberenvironment 2.1. I didn't do any optimization nor did I change any textures for iRay. Heck, I didn't even update the characters or actually finish the scene (I'd started it years ago but never finished it).
An OpenGL render at 1080p took 0.97 seconds.
A 3DL render at 1080p took 1 minute and 20 seconds.
An iRay 1080p render (again, using the OGL/3DL lighting and textures) with maximum samples set to 512 took 7 minutes and 46 seconds.
So, there are always going to be newer, faster machines coming out. If speed is of the utmost priority, get a Windows machine. If you prefer Mac and can live with slower renders, I'd pick whichever machine you can afford to pump up with RAM. I honestly believe that more RAM is more important than a few seconds – or even minutes – on a final render.
The next DAZ Studio is going to come when it comes, but no matter what it supports or what features it will have, there won't be anything in it that would make a significant difference on which of the two machines to get. Any render speed difference between the two just won't be that large. What you will notice is that working on your scene set-ups is lightning fast and buttery smooth. With the 20 characters I can swivel around the scene, zoom in, zoom out and so on, in real time and textured shading. iRay, of course, takes two or three seconds to flash to pixels and redraw to something useful.
I made the mistake of putting a couple of projects on hold back when I thought that the next DAZ Studio would be coming out "soon". I won't do that again.
I don't know if this all helps or hinders your decision, but I honestly think sweating over saving a few seconds of render time isn't worth it. You're losing more time worrying about it.
Hi inquire!
Absolutely, the M3 Ultra appears to excel at certain tasks while the M4 Max excels in others.
Here's a link to iPhonedo's review of the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra comparing it against his MacBook Pro M4 Max. So not an exact comparison (the Mac Studio can likely manage thermals better than the MacBook Pro, thus letting the M3 Ultra sustain full speed/power where the MacBook Pro might throttle down on longer tasks.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHqyItSSp8w (after the unboxing, he lays out some great benchmarks comparing the entire M4 chip family)
What's interesting is a review of a 2013 Mac Pro and a Mac mini M1. You'd have to see how the Mac Pro 2013 benchmarks relative to the M1 and then find a comparison of M1 to the rest of the M4 chips to work your way up to a reasonable comparison between your Mac Pro to the new Mac Studio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gza7ebuT7DA (Mac Pro 2013 vs. M1 Mac mini)
My use case(s)/Mac history/work usage and @wsterdan align pretty closely, and so I'd recommend reading his post above this one. :)
It'll take me a bit of time to respond - another week, another 911 call for Mom. Got her home from the ER and settled into bed around 3:45 this morning. Doctors, ER team, and paramedics (all awesome) are hinting at me letting nature run its course at this point. So it's been hard these past few weeks/months. I need to catch up on sleep and food. :)
Lee
I am so very sorry, Lee. I've been through Something like that.
About the external OWC T4 drives: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-envoy-ultra
They get their power by plugging into the Mac computer. Does this make them weaker than a drive that plugs into a socket for power? I want to be able to set the external drive as a boot drive if I have to correct something on the internal HD. Can I do that with one of these ultra drives? I have used Recovery, and I have booted over the internet, but in a few cases an Apple agent told me to get a friend with a Macintosh or to take the computer to an Apple store. I thought, "Why can't I just boot to the extrenal drive?" In a case like that the external drive was much like using a second Macintosh.
So, would I be able to set one of these drives as the boot drive and reboot the computer? And, again, is one of these drives weaker because it gets its power from a computer and not from an electrical socket?
You should be able to use an external bus-powered SSD as a boot drive. I've been using bus-powered HDs and SSDs for over a decade without issue.
With the latest OS, you might lose a feature or two (e.g. Apple Intelligence) but if you're using it as a boot drive for repairs or something similar, you should be fine. At the very least, "enough power" shouldn't be an issue.
Sequoia-specific article:
https://appleinsider.com/inside/macos-sequoia/tips/how-to-make-an-external-bootable-drive-in-macos-sequoia
@wsterdan: Thank you for your answer and for the link to the step-by-step article. So I can't just use SuperDuper then? Well, maybe SuperDuper will create a new version that will do some of this work. In the comments below the article, someone wishes this for CarbonCopyCloner.
I much appreciate your answers and efforts.
For what it's worth, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to duplicate my MacBook Pro's set-up onto my MacBook Air, it worked beautifully.
Oh, do you mean you can already use carbon copy cloner to create a boot drive even in macOS Sequoia? I wonder if you can use super Duper to do that. I've been doing it with superduper,
You should be able to do it with SuperDuper. There was a bug in Sequioa 15.2 that made it impossible, but apparently the 15.3 update fixed that and made SuperDuper viable again for bootable back-ups.
OK, that seems right. I just checked with shirt pocket software, the makers of superduper. But do I still have to go through that process of choosing reduced security?
And if I do, do I just continue always using reduce security?
Can't help you there; to be honest, the first I'd ever heard of SuperDuper was when you mentioned it a few months ago. I don't think that reduced security would be an issue if you take your machines offline when you do any maintenance you're looking at doing while you're doing it.