Apple has announced the new Mac Studio, featuring the M5 Max and the newly introduced M5 Ultra chips, which the company describes as its most powerful silicon to date. Positioned as a desktop built specifically for high-performance AI computing, the new Mac Studio puts frontier-class AI models directly on a user's desk, thanks in large part to Neural Accelerators built into each GPU core, which significantly speed up the matrix multiplication calculations underlying most AI workloads.
The M5 Max delivers up to 3.9 times faster AI performance than the previous generation, speeding up how quickly the chip processes AI prompts. With M5 Ultra, Mac Studio reaches up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute performance of the previous M3 Ultra, and nearly 9.8 times more than the original M1 Ultra. Paired with up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, 50% higher than before, Mac Studio can run very large AI models entirely on-device, keeping data private and avoiding the token limits or rising costs associated with cloud-based AI services.
For users who need even more scale, multiple Mac Studio systems can be clustered together using built-in Thunderbolt 5 and RDMA (remote direct memory access, a technique that lets systems share memory directly), creating a large shared memory pool across machines and allowing users to load some of the largest open-weight AI models currently available. A cluster of four Mac Studio systems delivers up to 3 times faster AI inference than a single unit.
Mac Studio is also built to support the broader ecosystem of tools AI researchers and developers rely on, using frameworks built into macOS. Core AI is a new framework for building, running, and deploying AI models on Apple silicon, designed around Apple's unified memory architecture spanning the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine, letting developers deploy full-scale large language models locally or bring their own custom models into their apps. MLX, Apple's open-source machine learning framework optimized for Apple silicon, lets developers run, train, and fine-tune models efficiently on Mac. Combined with Xcode and a broader ecosystem of AI development tools, Apple positions Mac Studio as a complete platform spanning the full AI development process, from early experimentation and training through deployment. Developers can also expect faster build times in Xcode and access to on-device coding assistants.
Mac Studio with M5 Max: Built for Pro Workloads
Designed for users who need serious performance in a compact form factor, such as musicians, photographers, software engineers, and designers working in real-time 3D and motion graphics, the Mac Studio with M5 Max features an 18-core CPU (6 high-performance "super" cores and 12 standard performance cores), letting developers compile code faster. Its GPU, with up to 40 cores and integrated Neural Accelerators, is up to 50% faster than the prior generation, improving graphics-intensive tasks like game development through higher frame rates and more detailed scene geometry. With up to 614GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, M5 Max delivers fast on-device AI processing, letting users run large language models, generate images and video, and speed up complex creative workflows.
The new Mac Studio also introduces third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing, improving the realism of lighting, reflections, and shadows across 3D, visual effects, and design work. Enhanced shader cores boost parallel processing, resulting in smoother real-time navigation and faster offline rendering. Its Media Engine supports hardware-accelerated decoding for H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and AV1 formats, letting filmmakers color-grade uncompressed 8K footage and handle multiple simultaneous video streams.
Compared to the previous M4 Max, Mac Studio with M5 Max delivers up to 3 times faster performance for the Magic Mask feature in Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve Studio, and 1.4 times faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift. Overall, compared to the original M1 Max, M5 Max delivers up to 10.7 times faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio (3.9 times faster than M4 Max), up to 7.4 times faster text-to-image generation (3.5 times faster than M4 Max), up to 5.3 times faster Magic Mask performance in DaVinci Resolve (3 times faster than M4 Max), and up to 3.5 times faster DNA sequence basecalling in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW (1.9 times faster than M4 Max).
Mac Studio with M5 Ultra: Built for the Most Demanding Workloads
Aimed at professionals handling the most extreme computing tasks, filmmakers color-grading uncompressed 8K footage in real time, visual effects artists rendering complex simulations, and data scientists training AI models on large datasets, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra features a CPU with up to 36 cores (12 super cores and 24 performance cores), delivering up to 1.3 times higher multithreaded performance than M3 Ultra. Its GPU, with up to 80 cores, is described as the most powerful Apple silicon GPU built to date, and brings Neural Accelerators to the Ultra chip line for the first time, delivering up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute performance of M3 Ultra, along with up to 1.8 times faster graphics performance than the prior generation.
Combined with up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of bandwidth, Apple positions the new Mac Studio as a major step forward for AI workloads, letting AI coding assistants run faster, image-generation tools render near-instantly, and teams cluster multiple systems together to scale performance further. With twice the video encode and decode hardware compared to M5 Max, the Media Engine in M5 Ultra can simultaneously play back up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps.
Compared to the original M1 Ultra, M5 Ultra delivers up to 15.4 times faster CopyCat machine learning training performance in Foundry Nuke (3.3 times faster than M3 Ultra), up to 9.8 times faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio (4 times faster than M3 Ultra), up to 8.2 times faster text-to-image generation (4.3 times faster than M3 Ultra), and up to 4.7 times faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift (1.7 times faster than M3 Ultra).
Storage and Connectivity
The new Mac Studio also features faster storage and expanded professional connectivity options. Its next-generation SSD architecture delivers up to twice the read and write speeds of the previous generation, speeding up project loading, file transfers, and loading large AI models. Thunderbolt 5 ports offer transfer speeds up to 120Gb/s, supporting high-performance peripherals, displays, PCIe expansion chassis, and external storage. The Apple-designed N1 chip brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to Mac Studio for the first time, improving wireless performance and reliability. The system also supports genlock over USB-C, enabling precise synchronization between a display and professional camera equipment like the iPhone 17 Pro, and can drive up to eight displays total, or up to four Studio Display XDR monitors at full 5K resolution and 120Hz.
macOS 27 "Golden Gate"
The new Mac Studio ships alongside the upcoming macOS 27 release, which introduces Siri AI, a considerably more capable and personalized assistant, along with Apple Intelligence features built into everyday apps and broader improvements to system responsiveness and reliability. Siri AI can draw on personal context to help users find information across messages, emails, and photos, answer general questions, and complete tasks across different apps. It's integrated into Spotlight search and system-wide context menus, and users can ask Siri about what's currently on their screen using Visual Intelligence through a dedicated keyboard shortcut. Professionals can also write and edit text using Siri in most places they type.
Apple Intelligence also brings new capabilities across the system, including ways to customize and organize browsing in Safari, the ability to create automations in Shortcuts just by describing them in plain language, and more advanced photo editing tools within the Photos app. Existing features get performance and search improvements as well, and refinements to Apple's Liquid Glass visual design improve readability while introducing more uniform toolbars, edge-to-edge sidebars, and updated window shapes and menu bar icons for further customization.
Environmental Considerations
The new Mac Studio was designed with environmental impact in mind, supporting Apple's broader goal of being carbon neutral across its full operations by 2030. It's built using 35% recycled content overall, including a fully recycled aluminum enclosure and 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. Manufacturing draws on 40% renewable energy, such as wind and solar, across the supply chain, and the device meets Apple's standards for energy efficiency and safe chemical use. As with all Apple products, its packaging is entirely fiber-based and can be recycled at home.
