The price of the Mac Studio equipped with the M3 Ultra chip is currently completely out of control on the second-hand market. The price of the 512GB unified memory version is as high as 25,000 US dollars (about 170,000 yuan). For comparison, the 256GB version equipped with 16TB SSD is priced at about US$12,000 on Apple’s official website. For the same model, the memory is doubled, and the price is more than doubled.
The main reason is that Apple is expected to release the Mac Studio and Mac mini based on the M5 chip in the next few months, so it has deliberately reduced the production of the M4 version.
Apple’s logic is not complicated. Once the M5 product is launched, the memory contained in the unsold M4 devices will face the risk of wastage.
Against the background of the current tight supply of global memory chips, the cost of each memory particle is rising, and Apple is obviously unwilling to bear the cost of inventory backlog for products that are about to become obsolete.
The shortage of the M4 version triggered a chain reaction. Users who could not buy M4 turned to M3. M3 stock was also limited. Coupled with the macro factor of insufficient memory production capacity, the 512GB version quickly became a scarce product.
Therefore, on second-hand trading platforms such as eBay and Swappa, some sellers even marked the price to more than 30,000 US dollars.
However, spending $25,000 to buy a product that will be two generations behind is not a rational investment in any case. The Mac Studio with Apple M5 chip is expected to be released as soon as this summer.
