Apple just gave its most powerful desktop Mac a major performance boost. The company on Tuesday introduced an upgraded Mac Studio powered by the M5 Max processor and the all-new M5 Ultra, promising substantially faster AI performance, graphics and CPU performance in the same compact design.
“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, in a press release.
M5 Max and M5 Ultra make Mac Studio even more powerful
The Mac Studio is Apple’s most powerful Mac, delivering more performance than even the best MacBook Pro. While the MacBook Pro packs an impressive amount of power into a portable design, the Mac Studio is built to push performance even further, without the constraints of a laptop.
The M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips raise the bar again, giving the Mac Studio substantially more CPU, GPU and AI performance and making it an even more capable machine for demanding professional workloads.
As this is a “chip and ship” upgrade, all the attention is on the processors. The general design of the desktop did not change, although Apple mentioned thermal upgrades in a video posted Tuesday.
“We updated Mac Studio’s thermal design to keep pace with our most powerful silicon,” said Shelly Goldberg, Apple vice president of hardware engineering, in the video. “That means M5 Max and M5 Ultra can not only deliver but also sustain peak performance, all while staying cool and quiet on your desk.”
M5 Ultra pushes Mac performance to new heights
The M5 Max configuration features an 18-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU with Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core. It supports as much as 128GB of unified memory and offers up to 614GB/s of memory bandwidth.
The M5 Ultra takes things considerably further with up to 36 CPU cores, up to 80 GPU cores and 512GB of unified memory. Its memory bandwidth reaches 1.2TB/s, allowing the Mac to handle enormous AI models locally without sending data to the cloud.
Apple says the M5 Ultra delivers up to 4.3 times the peak AI performance of the previous-generation M3 Ultra. Graphics performance is up to 1.8 times faster, while CPU performance is up to 1.3 times faster.
That massive memory capacity could be particularly useful for AI developers. Apple says the new Mac Studio can run large language models entirely on the device, avoiding cloud computing costs and allowing sensitive data to remain private.
“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,” said Srouji. “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.”
Faster storage and better connectivity
Plus, the new Mac Studio packs a significant connectivity upgrade. Its next-generation SSD architecture uses PCIe Gen 6, delivering up to twice the storage performance of the previous generation.
Thunderbolt 5 provides bandwidth of up to 120Gbps, while Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 make their debut on the Mac Studio.
The desktop can drive as many as eight displays, or up to four Studio Display XDR monitors running at full 5K resolution and 120Hz.
Don’t overlook the hardware
Image: Apple
The M5 Max/M5 Ultra Mac Studio keeps Apple’s distinctive compact desktop design, packing an enormous amount of computing power into a small aluminum enclosure that can sit neatly on a desk.
Despite its size, it offers plenty of connectivity, with Thunderbolt 5 ports, USB-A, HDMI, Ethernet and a headphone jack on the back, plus additional Thunderbolt 5 and USB-C ports and an SDXC card slot on the front. That combination makes it easy to connect high-speed storage, multiple displays, cameras, audio equipment and other professional gear without needing a collection of dongles.
macOS 27 comes along for the ride
The new Mac Studio will debut running macOS 27, which brings Apple’s next-generation Apple Intelligence features and Siri AI to the Mac.
Siri AI can use personal context to find information across messages, emails and photos, while also working across apps. Apple is integrating Siri into Spotlight and system-wide context menus, with Visual Intelligence providing information about what’s displayed on the screen.
macOS 27 is scheduled to launch in September. It is in beta testing now.
M5 Max and M5 Ultra Mac Studio: Pricing and availability
The upgraded Mac Studio is available to preorder today, August 25, with the first machines arriving September 22. Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at $2,499, while the M5 Ultra version starts at $5,499.
Apple promises that configurations with 512GB of unified memory will arrive in late October.
Here is the more "traditional" Apple event style video for the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, which Apple posted on Instagram pic.twitter.com/LIkR5PyU7N
— Aaron (@aaronp613) August 25, 2026
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.
That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)
Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
