apple quietly cut its priciest Mac's RAM by 81% — and it might still be the smarter local-AI buy

Apple's own memory shortage just raised Mac Studio prices and gutted its top RAM tier — here's whether it's still worth buying over a GPU PC for… Aliteq Lena Fischer · AI & Local Compute Editor

Apple raised the Mac Studio M4 Max from $1,999 to $2,499 (+25%) and the M3 Ultra from $3,999 to $5,299 (+33%) on June 25, 2026.

Apple pulled the 512GB memory option in March 2026 and the 256GB option by May 2026 — the M3 Ultra now tops out at 96GB, an 81% cut from its old maximum.

The cause is the same AI-driven DRAM and GDDR7 shortage that's been pushing up Nvidia GPU prices all year.

A Mac Studio still uses roughly a tenth of the electricity of a GPU PC at 24/7 inference — the gap that actually decides total cost over a few years.

For models that fit under 24GB, a GPU PC still wins on raw speed and dollars; for anything bigger, the Mac's unified memory is the only affordable way in.

For a machine that sits in a home office running a large model continuously without sounding like a hair dryer or showing up on your power bill, the Mac Studio's total cost of ownership catches up…

Buy the Mac Studio if quiet, big-model headroom is the actual point

Read the full story

Aliteq apple quietly cut its priciest Mac's RAM by 81% — and it might still be the smarter local-AI buy Read the full story on Aliteq