Sell Your Mac Studio M4 Max

Which Mac Studio do you have: M4 Max or M3 Ultra?

Apple sold two chips in the same 2025 Studio chassis, launched together in March 2025, so the outside of the machine tells you almost nothing. About This Mac settles it in one line. If the Studio will not power on, turn it round: the M4 Max has two plain USB-C ports on the front, rated at 10Gb/s, whereas the M3 Ultra's two front ports are Thunderbolt 5. The back of both carries four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI, 10Gb Ethernet and a headphone jack.

Within the M4 Max there are two chips. The standard part has a 14-core CPU and a 32-core GPU and shipped with 36GB of memory. The upgrade is the 16-core CPU with a 40-core GPU, and that is the only version Apple offered with 48GB, 64GB or 128GB. So a 128GB Studio is always the 40-core machine, which is why the memory figure alone tells us most of what we need to know.

If you own the M3 Ultra, its 96GB to 512GB memory ladder puts it in a different price band, and it has its own page. If you own the older 2023 M2 Max, the same applies. This page prices the 2025 M4 Max only.

What decides a Mac Studio M4 Max quote

Memory comes first. Because it is fixed at the factory, a 128GB Studio is scarce second-hand, and buyers who run large local models or heavy 3D scenes pay for it, so the gap between a 36GB machine and a 128GB one is the widest lever on this page. The 48GB and 64GB tiers sit between the two. Storage is next: the 512GB base is common, while 2TB, 4TB and 8TB drives add real money because footage and model weights fill a drive quickly.

Condition matters less than on a laptop. There is no display to scratch and no battery to wear out, so a Studio that has run flat out under a desk for eighteen months grades much the same as one that sat idle. A missing power cable costs nothing on the quote. What does move the number is a fault: a dead port, a fan that has failed or a board that will not start all still sell, at around £680 for a faulty M4 Max, because the memory and logic board keep their parts value.

Copy the CPU core count, GPU core count, memory and storage from About This Mac into the quote form. Those four figures separate one M4 Max from another, and guessing low is the only way to leave money on the table.

One generation behind the M5 Max: sell now or wait?

The M5 Max Studio went on sale on 22 September 2026, and that launch is the step the M4 Max was always going to take. It has now happened. From here the decline is gradual until the next Studio refresh, when the M4 Max becomes two generations old and steps down again. If yours is idle, or the M5 Max has already replaced it, the months ahead are the better window.

The buyers for a one-behind Max are specific: editors, developers and audio engineers who want desktop headroom without paying for the newest chip, plus a growing group who want a quiet machine with 64GB or 128GB of unified memory for local AI work. That demand is what keeps the M4 Max from falling far. It also means the machine sells on its spec, not its age, which is why a high-memory build a generation old can quote close to a base build of the current one.

Funding the upgrade? Quote the M4 Max first. The figure is locked for 14 days, long enough for the replacement to arrive, for you to migrate your projects, and only then to book the collection.

Courier collection, not a trip to the Post Office

Desktops go by free, fully-insured courier collection from your door. Pack the Studio in its original box if you still have it, or in a sturdy carton with padding on every side, and the courier collects on a day you choose. Insurance covers the full quoted value in transit, which matters when the figure is four digits.

Before it leaves, sign out of your Apple Account and turn off Find My so the Studio is not Activation Locked, the one thing we cannot clear ourselves. There is no need to wipe the drive first: once the machine passes inspection it is erased to NIST 800-88 standards. Payment lands within 24 hours of inspection, and if we ever revise a quote and you decline, the Studio comes back to you free, insured, with no return fee.