Apple has announced a new generation of Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra CPU options. The compact pro desktop has its classic look, but gets considerable advancements to CPU, GPU, unified memory, AI performance, storage and connections.
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra is now one of Apple’s most potent desktop systems for creative pros, developers, and AI specialists.
Mac Studio M5 Max: more performance for professionals
The M5 Max Mac Studio packs an 18-core CPU with six super cores and 12 performance cores. Buyers can configure the GPU with up to 40 cores, each with its own dedicated Neural Accelerator for AI applications.
Apple believes that GPU performance can be up to 50 per cent better than the previous generation.
Memory bandwidth scales to 614 GB/s and unified memory configurations ranging from 36 GB to 128 GB. Up to 8TB of storage possibilities.
Apple also claims big gains for AI tasks, with LLM quick performance in LM Studio up to 3.9x faster than the M4 Max Mac Studio.
M5 Ultra becomes Apple's most powerful chip
The flagship M5 Ultra raises the bar for Mac Studio performance.
It has a CPU with up to 36 cores, 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, as well as a GPU with up to 80 cores. Apple says up to 1.3x faster multithread CPU performance than M3 Ultra.
Now, every core in the GPU has a Neural Accelerator. Apple says the peak GPU computing power for AI tasks can be up to 4.5x the M3 Ultra, and more than six times the M1 Ultra.
The GPU also supports third-generation hardware ray tracing, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and second-generation Dynamic Caching.
Up to 512 GB of Unified Memory for Local AI
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra’s memory architecture is one of its strongest qualities.
Apple provides up to 512 GB of unified memory with a bandwidth of up to 1.2 TB/s, almost 50% more than the M3 Ultra.
The ability enables experts to retain very huge data sets and AI models on the Mac itself. Apple says the system can run massive language models with hundreds of billions of parameters fully on-device.
For businesses artificial intelligence can help lessen reliance on cloud infrastructure and retain sensitive data on the computer for corporations, developers and academics.
You can link many Mac Studios together using Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA to build shared-memory clusters. Apple says a cluster of four systems can run AI inference up to three times faster than a single Mac Studio.
The new Mac Studio also receives substantial connectivity upgrades.
Thunderbolt 5 supports bandwidth of up to 120 Gb/s, while Apple’s N1 chip adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
A new PCIe Gen 6 SSD architecture can offer up to twice the storage performance of the previous generation. Mac Studio also supports USB-C genlock and up to eight external displays.
Preços do Mac Studio M5 Max e M5 Ultra
In the US, prices start at:
- Mac Studio M5 Max: $2,499
- Mac Studio M5 Ultra: $5,499
Pre-orders opened on 25 August 2026, with general availability set for 22 September 2026. The M5 Ultra configuration with 512 GB of unified memory is expected in late October.
The new Mac Studio is more than your standard Apple Silicon refresh. Particularly useful for AI development, complex language models, video creation, 3D workloads and advanced data analysis, the M5 Ultra combines powerful GPUs, Neural Accelerators and up to 512 GB of unified memory.
The Mac Studio M5 Max and M5 Ultra take a Mac’s local capabilities to a new level for pros who need workstation-class performance in a small desktop.
