Apple updates Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

Apple announced a new Mac Studio built around the M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, positioning the compact desktop for demanding creative, developer, AI research and data science workflows. The company says the system delivers up to 4.3x faster AI performance, up to 2x faster storage, up to 1.8x faster graphics, and up to 1.3x faster CPU speed, alongside higher memory bandwidth.

The M5 Max version includes an 18-core CPU, an up-to-40-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in each core, and up to 128 GB of unified memory. The M5 Ultra configuration scales to a 36-core CPU, up to an 80-core GPU, and 512 GB of unified memory, enabling large LLMs to run entirely on device.

Mac Studio also adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for the first time, while Thunderbolt 5 supports high-speed external storage, PCIe expansion chassis and hub setups. Apple says Thunderbolt 5 can also connect multiple Mac Studio systems in clusters, delivering up to 3x faster performance for distributed AI inference compared with a single system. The new Mac Studio is available for pre-order starting today, with availability beginning September 22.