Apple launches Mac Studio models powered by M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips
Apple introduced new Mac Studio computers featuring its latest M5 Max and M5 Ultra processors, along with upgraded SSD, Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity.
Apple announced new Mac Studio configurations equipped with its M5 Max and M5 Ultra silicon. The devices incorporate a next-generation SSD architecture based on PCIe Gen 6, which Apple says can be up to twice as fast as previous models, and add Thunderbolt 5 ports delivering up to 120 Gb/s of bandwidth. For the first time, the machines also support Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 via Apple’s N1 chip, and genlock over USB-C, allowing connection of up to eight displays.
The M5 Ultra combines two dual-die M5 Max chips through UltraFusion technology, providing an inter-die bandwidth exceeding 4.4 TB/s. It features a 36-core CPU (12 super cores and 24 performance cores), an 80-core GPU with advanced shader, caching, mesh shading and ray-tracing capabilities, and a 32-core Neural Engine. Apple claims the GPU delivers up to 40 % faster graphics performance than the prior-generation M3 Ultra, while AI-related tasks see up to 4.5 times higher compute throughput.
Memory capacity rises to 512 GB of unified RAM with 1.2 TB/s bandwidth, a 50 % increase over the M3 Ultra, enabling larger local datasets and on-device large language models. The system can be clustered via Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA, with Apple stating that four linked Mac Studios can achieve three times the AI inference speed of a single unit.
The M5 Max variant offers an 18-core CPU, up to 40 GPU cores, up to 128 GB of unified memory and up to 8 TB of storage, with Apple citing up to 3.9 times faster AI performance versus the previous generation. Pre-orders are open, with the base models shipping on September 22 and the 512-GB memory configuration arriving in late October.