ah yea the total bandwith does make sense, good to know that its just better now, i havent run into any problems but i dont have storage connected just all ports filled up with displays and blackmagic cards e.t.c
totally agree about speed of flame. doesn’t make that much difference - just the overall experience.
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Look forward to hearing your experience when the Mac Studio arrives.
Did you go for the 80 core gpu?
What media storage drives will you be using?
The 512GB memory is tempting but the price increase is dramatic, especially until we know if it makes much difference to Flame performance.
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80 core GPU with the 256 ram. OWC T5 drives.
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Good review with stats, though it’s a bit more consumer-oriented:
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Please keep us updated anyone who gets either the M3 Ultra or M4 Pro Mac Studios.
Will be interested to see what performance is like for Flame and any other DCC software.
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I haven’t had a chance to try it with Flame yet but with basic c4d stuff an M3ultra Mac Studio is about 30% faster than an M2ultra. Turn on motion blur and it’s more like twice as fast.
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It’s too bad that cost difference from 64 BG to 128GB is so huge. 96GB would be sweet spot, but there is no such a option for M4 max.
Flame is a RAM hungry beast and you can’t upgrade RAM later on Apple Silicon. I’d stretch to pay for the 128GB as the upgrade will pay for itself.
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I really suggest 128 gb.
My flame is always with at least 70gb with basic 4k
If you retouch high resolution and like to plug many node inside a batch there is not doubt and it’s worth it.
You can deal with 64gb but you will have less flexibilty for your project. I know it’s expensive for an upgrade but you will have better day.
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Thanks Adam and Jerem.
For sure 128GB is optimal over 64GB. I use my PC with 96GB as main Nuke machine and very rarely go over 64GB. Of course it has 4090 with own 24 GB memory so it isn’t same as macOS. I have to save some money for M5 with more memory maybe 
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Hi Jon
Once you’ve had some time to put the system up and running, I’d love to hear your thoughts on its performance, and any noticeable improvements over your previous setup would be invaluable.
Looking forward to your updates!
Hey Adam, we just upgraded to an M3 Ultra. Coming from an iMac Pro (Intel).
I originally had a comp that took about 15-20mins to render (can’t quite remember!) that comp now renders in 3 mins. Also Flame general UI is less sticky. ML is definitely a lot quicker as well. After Effects is screaming a long.
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hi - so ive been using it for a few weeks now and its great. I sold my M2 Ultra to get this so can’t do side by sides. it’s much slicker than the Mac mini. I just did some visuals for a left field gig and did 20 mins through a batch and it absolutely ripped through it. very pleased. its great being back on the Mac Studio from the mini. so that’s all good. I think the ultra is the way to go because of the bandwidth and ive got some thunder 5 drives attached for cache and project files. overall it’s really quick and gets the job done. also dead slient and no heat!
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Thanks Legend
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Sounds promising
So how does the M3 stack up against the M4?
Well, it’s not really apples to apples though, right? I mean yes it is, but really not.
Did you see what I did there @andymilkis
Dad joke aside, I guess M3 Ultra Studio would crush M4 Max Mini.
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I see what you did, and I approve 
I also agree that the M3 Studio would absolutely crush the Mac Mini.
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In the industry we call that, “making cider.”
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