Apple Introduced the Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra--Up to 36 CPU Cores, 80 GPU Cores, 512GB, Shipping September 22

Apple announced a new Mac Studio on August 25 and it ships September 22. The M5 Max model, $2,499 ($2,299 education), has an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, up to 128GB of memory and 614GB/s of bandwidth. The M5 Ultra model, $5,499 ($5,099 education), goes to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, up to 512GB of memory and 1.2TB/s. Both have Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and storage Apple says is up to twice as fast as the previous generation; the tech specs page has the port-by-port list. The 512GB configuration ships late October.

"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 Johny Srouji, Apple's chief hardware officer, which is the first time an Apple hardware release has led with running large language models locally. 512GB of unified memory is the reason. Macworld and MacRumors have the configuration matrix; RedShark has the video-production angle including USB-C genlock.

The case is unchanged, which we count as a feature. TechRepublic reported in the spring that the Studio slipped because M5 supply was going to data-center AI demand; Production Expert expects a Mac mini refresh and a redesigned high-end notebook to follow this fall.

A hands-on report follows when we can get one on the bench. The Ultra with 512GB costs more than our first three Macs combined and is, for the people who need it, the cheapest machine of its kind on the market. [Macs Only!]