Mac Studio starts at $2,499 with M5 Max or $5,499 with M5 Ultra, a $3,000 gap between the two configurations Apple sells under one name. Apple has published full specs for both, and the difference is mostly cores, memory and bandwidth rather than any feature exclusive to one chip, arriving the same year Apple introduced A20 Pro in iPhone 18 Pro.
Both configurations reach general sale Tuesday, September 22, the same week Apple’s September 9 keynote lineup starts arriving in stores, though the very top of the Mac Studio range is not actually part of that date.
Key facts
| Spec | M5 Max | M5 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $2,499 ($2,299 education) | $5,499 ($5,099 education) |
| CPU | 18-core: 6 super cores, 12 performance cores | Up to 36-core: 12 super cores, 24 performance cores |
| GPU | Up to 40-core | Up to 80-core |
| Neural Engine | 16-core | 32-core |
| Max unified memory | 128GB | 512GB |
| Memory bandwidth | Up to 614GB/s | 1.2TB/s |
| Apple Upgrade lease | From $48.99/month, 36 months | From $110.10/month, 36 months |
What $2,499 buys with M5 Max
M5 Max pairs an 18-core CPU, split into six of what Apple calls super cores and 12 performance cores, with a GPU of up to 40 cores carrying Neural Accelerators. Memory bandwidth reaches 614GB/s, and Apple says storage is up to twice as fast as the previous generation. This configuration drives up to eight displays, or up to four Studio Display XDR units at 5K resolution and 120Hz.
Don’t miss the best of The Mac Observer
Set us as a preferred source and our Apple reporting ranks higher in your Google Search results and Discover feed — one tap, no account changes.
What $5,499 buys with M5 Ultra
M5 Ultra roughly doubles the M5 Max on paper: up to a 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, up to an 80-core GPU, and bandwidth of 1.2TB/s, nearly double M5 Max’s figure. Apple also states M5 Ultra moves more than 4.4TB/s between its two internal dies, which it offers as evidence the chip is genuinely fused rather than two separate processors. Its Media Engine carries twice the video encode and decode blocks of M5 Max, and Apple rates it for up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 frames per second.
Performance claims, side by side
| Claim | M5 Max | M5 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Peak AI performance | 3.9x faster than M4 Max | 4.3x faster than M3 Ultra, 9.8x faster than M1 Ultra |
| LLM prompt processing | 10.7x faster than M1 Max, 3.9x faster than M4 Max | 9.8x faster than M1 Ultra, 4x faster than M3 Ultra |
| Text-to-image generation | 7.4x faster than M1 Max, 3.5x faster than M4 Max | 8.2x faster than M1 Ultra, 4.3x faster than M3 Ultra |
| CPU multithreaded | Up to 15% faster than M4 | Up to 1.3x faster than M3 Ultra |
| Graphics | Up to 1.8x faster than previous generation | 1.8x faster than prior generation |
Read the table carefully: Apple measures each chip against a different baseline; M5 Max against M4 Max and M1 Max, M5 Ultra against M3 Ultra and M1 Ultra. Apple has not published a figure that puts M5 Max and M5 Ultra head to head on the same benchmark, so the two configurations can only be judged against their own predecessors, not against each other.
The 512GB build is not part of launch day
The 512GB memory figure in the table above is M5 Ultra’s ceiling, and Apple’s own Mac Studio announcement says that specific configuration does not ship until late October, a separate date from the September 22 general sale both chip tiers otherwise share. Apple is also promoting a use case beyond the single desk: it says four Mac Studio systems clustered together deliver three times faster AI inference than one system running alone, a claim it makes for Mac Studio as a category rather than for one chip specifically.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published a direct M5 Max versus M5 Ultra benchmark, a launch-day price for the 512GB configuration once it arrives, or pricing outside the United States and education store for either tier. It has not stated whether the late October date for the 512GB build could slip further, and it has not said how macOS 27, arriving this fall, changes anything about either configuration.
As of September 12, both Mac Studio tiers are ten days from general sale, and the flagship 512GB build is still roughly six weeks out, arriving well after iPhone 18 Pro reaches stores on September 18.
