Mac Studio Buyer's Guide: M5 Max vs. M5 Ultra
Apple last week announced two new Mac Studio models, with one built around the M5 Max chip and one around the all-new M5 Ultra chip, replacing the M4 Max and M3 Ultra models that had been on sale since March 2025. The gap between the two is unusually wide this time. ‌Mac Studio‌ with M5 Max starts at $2,499, holding the price Apple set when it raised Mac prices in June, while ‌Mac…
Apple has introduced two new Mac Studio models, differentiated by their powerful chips: the M5 Max and the M5 Ultra. The M5 Max starts at $2,499, while the M5 Ultra begins at $5,499—a significant price difference. The M5 Max features an 18-core CPU with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores, up to 40 GPU cores, and a 32-core Neural Engine.
In contrast, the M5 Ultra boasts a 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, up to 80 GPU cores, and a 32-core Neural Engine. The M5 Ultra also offers significantly more unified memory options, ranging from 96GB to 512GB, compared to the M5 Max's 36GB to 128GB.
The M5 Max provides up to 614GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the M5 Ultra delivers up to 1.2TB/s. This substantial bandwidth difference makes the M5 Ultra ideal for demanding workloads, such as local AI inference, where models with hundreds of billions of parameters can run on the device itself. The M5 Ultra also excels in research and simulation tasks requiring massive memory pools and six Thunderbolt 5 ports.
However, for most users, the M5 Max remains the more practical choice due to its balanced performance and memory offerings at a more affordable price point.
Written by urgent.news from MacRumors's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
