Apple introduces new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
Apple’s most powerful Mac brings up to 4.3x faster performance, more advanced graphics, up to 512GB of unified memory, and extensive connectivity – everything you need for the most demanding on-prem AI configurations. Available with M5 Max and the all-new M5 Ultra chips, these Macs are faster, with up to twice as much storage and high memory bandwidth.
Mac Studio with M5 Max (from $2,499) features an 18-core CPU, an up-to-40-core GPU with Neural Accelerators built into each core, and up to 128GB of unified memory, accelerating complex pro and AI workloads.
The even more powerful M5 Ultra (from $5,499), Mac Studio brings a 36-core CPU, up to 80-core GPU, and a colossal 512GB of unified memory.
Both systems bring Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, coupled with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, which also enables multiple Mac Studio systems to be clustered for powerful AI inference tasks.
What Apple said
“Mac Studio is the ultimate desktop for on-device AI and the world’s most demanding pro workflows, relied on by users for its tremendous performance and extensive pro connectivity, all in a quiet, compact design that sits right on your desk — and today, we’re pushing the boundaries even further,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s chief hardware officer.
“With the powerful M5 Max and the incredible capabilities of M5 Ultra, Mac Studio ushers in a new era of desktop computing, delivering huge performance gains for pro workloads and AI inference with frontier-class models. By integrating Neural Accelerators directly into the GPU and offering massive amounts of high-bandwidth unified memory, the new Mac Studio is our most powerful Mac ever.”
A great system for AI
These Macs are intended to be AI workhorses. Neural Accelerators in each GPU core deliver dramatically faster matrix multiplication. That means the M5 Max promises up to 3.9x faster AI performance than the prior generation, while M5 Ultra, Mac Studio achieves up to 4.3x the peak AI compute performance of M3 Ultra and a staggering 9.8x more than M1 Ultra.
With up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, you can run massive models entirely on device. The fact you can cluster multiple systems together means these systems can handle the most demanding frontier-class open-weight models available today. Four clustered Mac Studio systems delivers up to 3x faster AI inference than a single system, Apple said.
Storage performance is up to twice as fast, with a next-generation SSD architecture built on PCIe Gen 6, delivering industry-leading read and write speeds for rapid project loading, file transfers, and loading huge LLMs.
Mac Studio with M5 Max
An 18-core CPU with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores.
- The up-to-40-core GPU with Neural Accelerators is now up to 50 percent faster than the previous generation.
- Up to 614GB/s of unified memory bandwidth.
- The new Mac Studio also includes third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while its Media Engine supports hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and AV1 decode.
The result? You can expect up to 10.7x faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio when compared to Mac Studio with M1 Max, and 3.9x faster than M4 Max.
Mac Studio with M5 Ultra
M5 Ultra delivers the highest levels of performance and massive amounts of unified memory, enabling pros to push the limits of what they can achieve.
The Mac features an up-to-36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, delivering up to 1.3x higher multithreaded performance than M3 Ultra.
It also offers up-to-80-core GPU, the most powerful Apple silicon GPU ever.
Up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth
You get Neural Accelerators to enable up to 4.3x the peak AI compute performance when compared to M3 Ultra, along with 1.8x faster graphics than the prior generation. The chip provides twice the video encode and decode blocks as M5 Max, which means it can simultaneously play up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 at 30 fps on M5 Ultra.
What that means is that you can expect up to 9.8x faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio when compared to Mac Studio with M1 Ultra, and up to 4x faster than M3 Ultra.
The Macs both feature an Apple-designed N1 chip which brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to Mac Studio for the first time. Mac Studio now enables genlock over USB-C for precise synchronization between a display and professional camera capture like iPhone 17 Pro.
The Macs support up to eight displays, or up to four Studio Display XDR at full 5K resolution and 120Hz.
Mac Studio and the Environment
The new Mac Studio is made with 35 percent recycled content overall, including 100 percent recycled aluminum in the enclosure and 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets.
Available for pre-orders today to reach customers September 22.
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