Five of six base Mac Studio models now ask at or above launch price
A computer is supposed to lose a third of its value the day the next one ships. Config-matched against launch prices, five of the six Mac Studio base models are asking at or above what they cost new — and the sixth is at 87% after four and a half years.
Five of six base Mac Studio models had median used asking prices at or above their original launch prices in our Aug. 18-25 snapshot. The Mac Studio M2 Max, for example, launched in June 2023 at $1,999 for the base 32GB configuration. In our Aug. 18-25 observations, the median asking price for that exact machine, used, was $2,030 — 102% of what it cost new, three years and two months later.
That is not the strangest row in the table.
Mac Studio resale value by generation
Config-matched, base models only:
| Machine | Launched | At | Used median ask | Listings | Of launch price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 Max 32GB | March 2022 | $1,999 | $1,732 | 46 | 87% |
| M1 Ultra 64GB | March 2022 | $3,999 | $4,049 | 16 | 101% |
| M2 Max 32GB | June 2023 | $1,999 | $2,030 | 17 | 102% |
| M2 Ultra 64GB | June 2023 | $3,999 | $4,149 | 26 | 104% |
| M4 Max 36GB | March 2025 | $1,999 | $2,750 | 45 | 138% |
| M3 Ultra 96GB | March 2025 | $3,999 | $6,774 | 28 | 169% |
Five of six at or above launch price. The one machine actually depreciating, the M1 Max, has lost 13% in four and a half years.
Why are used Mac Studio asks above launch price?
Our own tables hold the before picture. The M1 Mac mini, a 2020 machine outside the Studio line, asks 73% of its launch price — ordinary, healthy depreciation. The Intel minis of the 2010s sit at 30-50% of what they cost after eight to fifteen years. Machines normally lose value with age. This August snapshot does not follow that pattern, and three conditions coincide with it: Apple raised the line’s list prices 14-33% in June — measured against the repriced $2,499 and $5,299 lists, the M4 Max and M3 Ultra still ask 110% and 128% — withdrew the biggest memory configurations from sale for months, and now quotes 10-14 week delivery on the machines it still sells. For some configurations, a used Studio is the only one available this week, and the asking prices reflect that scarcity.
Did buying an M3 Ultra beat the S&P 500 and bitcoin?
On the machine’s own launch window — yes, both, and it was not close. Put $3,999 into an S&P 500 index fund on March 12, 2025, the day the M3 Ultra Studio shipped, and by Aug. 25 it is worth about $5,483, a 37% price return. Put it in bitcoin and it is worth $3,902 — down 2%, after riding to $5,710 in mid-2025 and falling to $2,889 this May. Spend the same $3,999 on the base M3 Ultra and the median ask for that machine, used, is $6,774 — up 69% — and it spent those 17 months doing work.
Three honest deflations before anyone rebalances a portfolio into desktop computers. This is the strongest row of the retention table — the same exercise on the M1 Max, the table’s weakest row, loses to the index badly. An asking price is not a realized sale; selling costs fees and time, and the S&P figure excludes dividends, which would add a point or two to the index’s side. And the entire gap exists because of a supply shortage nobody could have planned to buy into. The chart is a description of what happened, not a strategy.
When could Mac Studio resale prices fall?
Three dates could change the comparison. Sept. 22, when the M5 generation starts shipping and the value of “available now” may begin to weaken. The weeks after the first deliveries, when trade-ins may add current-generation Studios to the resale market. And late October, when the 512GB M5 Ultra arrives and the used 512GB M3 Ultra’s position as the only half-terabyte machine expires. On announcement day itself, asks barely moved — 10 of our 12 tracked listings held — so the repricing, if it comes, waits on delivery trucks.
For anyone weighing the question these numbers raise — is a $5,499 or $25,000 machine still worth something serious in five years — the honest answer is that the last four years say yes and prove nothing. Those years contained a supply crisis that rewrote this table. Buy the machine for what it does; if the residual value holds too, that was the market’s gift, not its promise.
About the data: Used figures are median asking prices for base-configuration listings (chip and memory matched exactly) observed by our crawler across roughly 35 retailers, marketplaces and refurbishers, Aug. 18-25; secondhand conditions, one price per listing, auction bids excluded, scam-shaped listings filtered. Asking prices are not completed sales, and retention is measured against original launch price, not Apple's June 2026 repriced list. Sample sizes are in the table. S&P 500 figures are monthly closing prices from Yahoo Finance data, indexed from the March 12, 2025, close of 5,599.30 to the Aug. 25, 2026, close of 7,677.28; price return only, excluding dividends. Bitcoin figures are BTC-USD closes from the same data source, $81,066.70 on March 12, 2025, to $79,092.03 on Aug. 25, 2026.