Apple announced two new Mac Studio models last week, one built around the M5 Max chip and the other around the all-new M5 Ultra chip, replacing the M4 Max and M3 Ultra models on sale since March 2025.
The gap between the two is unusually wide this time. Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at $2,499, maintaining the price Apple set when it raised Mac prices in June, while Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499, an additional $200 increase over the post-June M3 Ultra price and $1,500 more than what the M3 Ultra cost at launch.
That makes the premium $3,000 before any build-to-order options, and memory and storage upgrades are more expensive than usual due to memory chip shortages. Our guide helps answer the question of how to decide which of these two Mac Studio models is best for you. Shared features include:
- An identical case measuring 3.7 inches in height and 7.7 inches in width
- Neural accelerators built into each GPU core and hardware-accelerated ray tracing
- Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW, plus AV1 decoding
- A next-generation SSD architecture that Apple says is up to twice as fast as before
- Thunderbolt 5 with up to 120 Gbps bandwidth and multi-system clustering using RDMA (direct memory access)
- 10 GB Ethernet, HDMI and an SDXC (UHS-II) card slot
- Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via the N1 chip, both new in Mac Studio
- Genlock over USB-C for syncing with professional camera capture
- A 3.5mm headphone jack with support for high-impedance headphones
- macOS 27, Apple Intelligence and Siri AI
Here is everything that differs between the two models:
| Mac Studio (M5 Max) | Mac Studio (M5 Ultra) |
|---|---|
| Starting at $2,499 | Starting at $5,499 |
| M5 Max chip | M5 Ultra chip |
| 18-core processor with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores | Up to 36-core processor with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, from 30 cores |
| GPU up to 40 cores, from 32 cores | GPU up to 80 cores, from 64 cores |
| 16-core neural engine | 32-core neural engine |
| Up to 614 GB/s memory bandwidth | 1.2 TB/s memory bandwidth |
| 36 GB, 48 GB, 64 GB or 128 GB of unified memory | 96 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB unified memory |
| 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB or 8 TB storage | 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB or 16TB storage |
| Up to 3.9x faster AI performance than M4 Max | Up to 4.3x the peak AI computing performance of M3 Ultra |
| Up to 50% faster graphics than M4 Max | Up to 1.8x faster graphics than M3 Ultra |
| One video decoding engine and two video encoding engines | Two video decoding engines and four video encoding engines |
| Dual ProRes encoding and decoding engines | Four ProRes encoding and decoding engines |
| Four Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-C ports, and two USB-A ports | Six Thunderbolt 5 ports and two USB-A ports |
| Support for up to five 4K displays, four 6K displays, or two 8K displays | Support for up to eight 4K displays, eight 6K displays, or four 8K displays |
| 6.0 pounds (2.7 kg) | 8.0 pounds (3.6 kg) |
For the overwhelming majority of buyers, including most professionals, the M5 Max is the most suitable choice. An 18-core CPU, up to 40 GPU cores with neural accelerators, up to 128 GB of unified memory, and up to 614 GB/s of bandwidth cover workflows such as 4K and 6K multi-stream editing, large Logic sessions with real-time plugins, compilation of substantial code bases, and most 3D and motion work.
Apple’s own numbers back this up, with Magic Mask performance up to 3x faster in Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio and 1.4x faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift compared to M4 Max, and graphics up to 50% faster than the previous generation. Since memory cannot be added later, the smart approach is to spend more on unified memory at the time of purchase rather than a higher-tier chip.
You should only choose the M5 Ultra if you expect to encounter a performance ceiling that the M5 Max can’t break through. The most obvious use case is local AI inference, where the entire model must reside in memory. The 256GB and 512GB configurations coupled with 1.2TB/s of bandwidth allow models with hundreds of billions of parameters to run on the machine itself, keeping sensitive items on the device and eliminating the recurring cost of paying for cloud inference.
Other workflows that can take advantage of the M5 Ultra include studios finishing 8K material from multiple cameras at once, where the dubbed Media Engine and its four encoding engines earn their keep, research and simulation work that requires a huge memory pool, and anyone who specifically needs six Thunderbolt 5 ports or more than five displays.
There is a notable problem in the way the two memory scales overlap. The M5 Ultra starts at 96GB, which is less than the 128GB you can configure on the M5 Max, so paying the extra at the entry configuration buys you more cores and more bandwidth, but less memory. The Ultra only splits to 256GB and up, and Apple limits the 512GB option to the 80-core GPU model, meaning the configurations that justify the machine sit well above its starting price.
This is where the price proximity argument becomes noticeable. Configuring an M5 Max with memory and storage narrows the gap considerably, and at this point the Ultra is worth evaluating alongside it, as it roughly doubles the GPU cores, Neural Engine cores, memory bandwidth, and Media Engine capacity in a single step. If your workload sits comfortably within 128GB, that money is better spent on storage and displays than on a chip.
Both models support clustering over Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA, and Apple says four Mac Studio systems working together deliver AI inference up to 3x faster than a single machine, so scaling inference doesn’t necessarily mean outright purchasing the most expensive configuration.
If the M5 Max still seems like more performance than you need, the new Mac mini with the M5 Pro chip starts at $1,699 with up to a 20-core GPU and 307 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is enough for much professional work.
Both new Mac Studio models are available for pre-order now, with availability starting September 22. The 512GB configuration arrives in late October, and pricing is expected to start well above $10,000.
