The Mac Studio is one of the most powerful desktops that you can buy — and it deserves an incredible monitor to match. Choosing one, however, is much harder than you might expect, with bucketloads of different options out there vying for some space on your desk.
With an M2 Max or Ultra chip thrumming away on the inside, the Mac Studio is perfect for video and photo editing. To that end, you need a super-accurate monitor to pair with it. The most important part of all is the resolution — depending on the kind of work that you'll be doing, you'll need it to be as hi-res as possible. You'll need excellent display quality as well, and you'll need to consider the kind of ports and connectivity you might want.
We've rounded up all the best monitors that we've tested, and made a list so that you can find the best monitor for you. For even more variety, you can check out our best monitors for Mac guide, which contains a few picks with broader appeal beyond the use cases of the Mac Studio.
Quick list
An incredible monitor for Mac Studio, the Philips 27B1U7903 truly impressed us when we reviewed it. We were wowed by the monitor's 4K display and HDR capabilities with the screen providing impressive colors and great contrast.
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The Apple Studio Display is expensive but it's the go-to monitor choice for Mac Studio. A 27-inch 5K display, it has four ports including three USB-C ports and one Thunderbolt port that can deliver up to 96W of power.
This quick and responsive 4K monitor might not be super cheap, but if you're on a budget it's excellent value. It has a great-looking 31.5-inch curved screen and is a solid choice for gamers with a 165Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time.
The Dough Spectrum 4K is fantastic value for money. You get a 4K 144Hz display that's gorgeously glossy. The premium display ensures your games look and feel incredibly smooth. It also has an excellent selection of ports including HDMI and USB-C.
If you're looking for peak brightness and beautiful images, the Apple Pro Display XDR is your 6K stunner. This 32-inch monitor comes in standard and Nano-texture glass options and the choice of different stands.
A stunning 4K 32-inch monitor that does everything a Mac Studio user could ever want. It's not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a great all-rounder for a whole bunch of use cases.
Best overall
The Philips 27B1U7903 is a stunning display and easily the best all-around monitor on this list. It's colorful, with great color accuracy, and its 4K resolution makes it super sharp. 27 inches is the perfect size for productivity without getting to the region of having a TV on your desk, and the stand is good to boot.
The speakers are a bit rubbish, and the many buttons for controlling the on-screen display could be better, but those small issues barely make a mark on the luster of this excellent monitor. Well-priced, super-powered, and with great connectivity, no Mac Studio user will regret picking this monitor up.
If you're looking for the best monitor for Mac Studio, the Philips 27B1U7903 is a fantastic option that is sure to stand out on your desk, perfect for anyone looking to get some serious work done with their incredibly powerful Mac.
Best for artists
Let's get one thing out of the way here first — the Apple Studio Display is an expensive monitor. If you're an artist, however, you're not going to find much better than the incredible resolution on display here. It features a 5K display, which makes it sharper and more detailed than the other displays on the list, making it perfect for when you need to see every single detail on an image or a drawing.
It doesn't have the most connection options, although it will connect to your Mac Studio with a USB-C cable, so you won't have to worry too much. The supply issues that plagued the monitor on its release are all but gone now, too, so you won't have any issues getting a hold of one.
Best budget
If you don't mind about the Monitor being 4K, then this Dell is an excellent budget option. It's less than $400, for a start, making it the cheapest monitor on the list, and you get loads of performance for the money. It's got a blazing fast refresh rate of up to 165Hz depending on the connection you use on the back, and its massive screen has a 1440p resolution that might not make it quite 4K, but does make it a great deal more impressive than the equivalent 1080p display.
You won't get a Thunderbolt port on the back here, so you'll have to connect over DisplayPort or HDMI, but your Mac Studio has all the ports you'll need for this one. It does look a little 'gamery' as well, but you'll soon not notice when you give it a try.
Best for gamers
Looking to enjoy some gaming on your Mac Studio? Look no further than the Dough Spectrum 27-inch. For the gamers amongst us, it's got loads of cool features, chiefly its monster 144Hz refresh rate. That'll make all those games you have running on your Mac run well, and crucially, really smoothly.
The 4K resolution will do you well too, making sure that your games are looking their best behind the glossy screen. That latter part means that you'll have to make sure that you're not using the display in a room filled with glare, but if you do, you'll be in for a high-res treat. Connectivity is good too, with loads of ways to plug your Mac in. There's support for both Nvidia's Gsync and AMD's FreeSync too, making sure that it's got all the features a modern gamer needs.
Best display
The Apple Pro Display XDR is, put simply, the best-looking screen that you can pick up for an Apple machine. It's designed with content creation in mind, with ridiculous color accuracy and wonderful clarity. It's 6K, which means that while it might not be quite as detailed and sharp as an 8K display, it'll wow you more than a 4K display would. And at 32 inches, the differences between it and an 8K display are going to be almost entirely negligible.
All this does come at a price — a big price. The monitor will set you back $4,599. That's a lot for a monitor, but you're getting the tippity-toppiest Mac monitor for the price. It's not a bargain, but if you need the best display ever then you'll not regret the incredible expense.
Best all-rounder
The BenQ PD3225U is a monster of a monitor, equipped with some very helpful features. The 32-inch display is more than large enough for almost anything you want to throw at it, and the color accuracy is top form. It is big, so you want to make sure that you've got the space for it on your desk, but if you do, then you're in for a treat.
At just over $1,000, it's not a cheap monitor, but its display quality makes up for the higher price. We were massive fans in our review of the monitor, and while gamers aren't going to be the biggest fans, it's target audience of creatives is going to be very well served indeed.
Q&A
What to look for in a monitor for your Mac Studio
You can always trust iMore. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Find out more about how we test.
You've invested a lot into buying the Mac Studio, whether it's the latest M2 variety or the older Mac Studio M1. One of the main reasons why you've been tempted by it over the Mac Mini is likely to be due to how well the Mac Studio's GPU performs with creative apps like Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Affinity Photo, Boris FX Sapphire 2022, Maxon Cinema 4D, and Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio.
To take advantage of such fantastic raw power, you need to match it with a similarly superior monitor, otherwise, you're just missing out. Here are a few things to consider when picking the best monitor for your Mac Studio:
- Size - this is an obvious one, but the size of a monitor is very important. A larger display will mean more information and content shown on screen, while a smaller display will take up less room, be cheaper, and use less energy
- Resolution - the number of pixels in a display determines how much detail you see and how good the picture is. A 4K monitor is the standard these days. A 5K monitor like the Apple Studio Display will offer twice as much detail while keeping the proportions of macOS just right, but at a cost. You may also want to consider a normal 1080p HD monitor, which will have lower visual fidelity but cost much less.
- Colors - Monitors will offer various color modes that can be used for things like photo and video editing, this is particularly important if you want to undertake visually heavy tasks using your new monitor.
- Ports and connectivity - A monitor will take up one of your Mac Studio's ports, but the right monitor can actually expand and increase connectivity, with the best options listed here also acting like hubs to add USB connectivity, charging, and more
How we test monitors
These Mac Studio monitors have been reviewed by iMore, and we've put them through their paces in a number of different ways. A monitor review includes testing in day-to-day use, such as office work and gaming, as well as testing the monitor in different viewing scenarios to test performance in specific areas. Our testing includes viewing videos, photo and video editing, gaming, and more. We also test these products over an extended period to ensure that they are reliable regarding durability and build quality and are designed and built to last.
We consider the different conditions a monitor might need to work in too — whether that's in harsh direct lighting, on a cramped desk, in vertical or horizontal orientations, and more.
Does any monitor work with Mac Studio?
The Mac Studio's HDMI connection is a standard type so it will work with all monitors that have HDMI capabilities. You can also connect the Mac Studio to any Thunderbolt-compatible monitors as well as through DisplayPort.
Can I use MacBook as monitor for Mac Studio?
No, you can't use a MacBook as a monitor for your Mac Studio.
Lots of screens to go around
Picking out the best monitor for you varies depending on how you plan to use your setup and your budget. Sometimes, it simply comes down to personal preference. That said, we're confident that all the monitors showcased above are worth considering, thanks to their high quality viewing experience.
