Apple Mac Studio / M5 Max / 18-Core CPU / 32-Core GPU / 36GB RAM / 512GB SSD

Mac Studio returns as Apple's ultimate professional desktop, now powered by M5 Max and the newly redesigned M5 Ultra.

The M5 Max version is aimed at creators, developers, and engineers who need serious sustained performance without the step up to Ultra-class hardware. Its 18-core CPU (configurable to a higher core count) and 32-core GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing are built for tasks like editing high-resolution RAW photo stacks, compiling large codebases, and running real-time 3D and motion graphics. With Neural Accelerators built into every GPU core and up to 128GB of unified memory, M5 Max also handles local AI workloads with ease — running large language models entirely on-device rather than relying on the cloud.

At the top of the range sits M5 Ultra, created by fusing two M5 Max dies into a single chip using Apple's UltraFusion architecture. The result is the most CPU cores ever in a Mac, the most powerful GPU Apple silicon has produced, and a chip explicitly designed to be Apple's most capable yet for AI. With up to 512GB of unified memory and dramatically higher memory bandwidth than the previous generation, M5 Ultra is built for the heaviest professional workloads: colour-grading uncompressed 8K footage, running computational fluid dynamics simulations, and executing frontier-class AI models locally, with no cloud tokens required.

Both configurations include Thunderbolt 5 at up to 120Gb/s, supporting high-bandwidth external storage, video sync via genlock, low-latency clustered computing, and daisy-chained multiple displays. Mac Studio also supports PCIe expansion through an external chassis, and both models add Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Display support scales with the chip: M5 Max drives up to five external displays, while M5 Ultra can drive as many as eight.

Both configurations run the latest generation of Apple Intelligence and Siri AI — a more conversational, more capable assistant with genuine on-screen awareness, delivered through a dedicated app. Apple's Private Cloud Compute extends AI capability to larger models when needed, without exposing personal data outside Apple's control.

Despite the leap in performance, Mac Studio's thermal system keeps operation quiet even under sustained load — handling batch video renders or long-running coding agent tasks without becoming a distraction.