Mac Studio (2026)

With the Mac Pro discontinued, the 2026 Mac Studio is Apple’s top desktop, and the choice comes down to two chips in the same 7.7-inch square aluminum case. The M5 Max model suits photographers, video editors, and developers who want a quiet Mac that sits on the desk, and several reviewers called it the sensible pick of the two. The M5 Ultra model doubles the chip for buyers running large AI models locally or rendering for a living, at more than twice the starting price. Memory is fixed when you order, and the SSD is not designed to be upgraded later.

Apple announced both models on August 25, 2026, and they went on sale on September 22. This generation keeps the design of the 2022 original and changes the inside: Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 through Apple’s N1 chip, a Neural Accelerator in every GPU core, and an SSD that Apple rates at up to twice the speed of the last generation. Thunderbolt 5 carries over from the 2025 model. A 512GB memory option for the M5 Ultra is due in late October.

Pros and Cons

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Mac Studio (2026) Comparison Chart

	Mac Studio (2026)	Mac Studio (2026)
Price	List Price: $2499.00 Amazon Prices: Loading prices...	List Price: $5499.00 Amazon Prices: Check Price on Amazon
Version	M5 Max/36GB/512GB	M5 Ultra/96GB/1TB
Performance Rating	8.1	9.7
Operating System	macOS	macOS
Processor	Eighteen-core Apple M5 Max	30-core Apple M5 Ultra
GPU	Integrated M5 Max 32-Core GPU	Integrated M5 Ultra 64-Core GPU
RAM	36 GB (460GB/s; 614GB/s with 40-core GPU)	96 GB (1.2TB/s bandwidth)
Internal Storage	512 GB SSD	1 TB SSD
Dimensions width x length x thickness	7.7 x 7.7 x 3.7 inches (195.58 x 195.58 x 93.98 mm)	7.7 x 7.7 x 3.7 inches (195.58 x 195.58 x 93.98 mm)
Weight	6 lbs (2.73 kg)	8 lbs (3.64 kg)
WiFi	Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be)	Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be)
Bluetooth	6.0	6.0
Ethernet	1 Ethernet port at 10 Gbps	1 Ethernet port at 10 Gbps
HDMI	1 Full-Size HDMI Port	1 Full-Size HDMI Port
DisplayPort	DisplayPort 2.1 over Thunderbolt 5	DisplayPort 2.1 over Thunderbolt 5
VGA	No VGA Ports	No VGA Ports
USB Ports	2 USB 3, 6 USB-C (4 USB4) 2 front USB-C (10Gb/s), 4 rear Thunderbolt 5, 2 USB-A (5Gb/s)	2 USB 3, 6 USB-C (6 USB4) 2 front and 4 rear Thunderbolt 5, 2 USB-A (5Gb/s)
Thunderbolt Ports	4	6
OCuLink	No	No
Internal SATA Ports	No SATA ports	No SATA ports
Card Reader	SD Card Reader	SD Card Reader
Headphone Jack	3.5mm rear	3.5mm rear
Fanless	No	No
VESA Mount	No	No
In the Box	Mac Studio, power cord	Mac Studio, power cord
Expandability	Memory fixed at purchase; the SSD is a removable module, but Apple sells no upgrades. Thunderbolt 5 for external storage, PCIe chassis, and clustering.	Memory fixed at purchase; the SSD is a removable module, but Apple sells no upgrades. Thunderbolt 5 for external storage, PCIe chassis, and clustering.

M5 Max: the standard model

The standard M5 Max has an 18-core CPU with six super cores and twelve performance cores, a 32-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and 460GB/s of memory bandwidth. It ships with 36GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD. Choosing the 40-core GPU at purchase raises bandwidth to 614GB/s and unlocks the 48GB, 64GB, and 128GB memory options; storage goes up to 8TB. The Media Engine has two video encode engines and two ProRes engines.

AppleInsider ran its pro workflow tests on an M5 Max with a 1TB SSD. Its Xcode compile test finished in 51 seconds, less than half the times of the M3 Ultra and M4 Max, and a chemistry simulation took 32 seconds against 46 seconds on the M3 Ultra and 44 seconds on the M4 Max. Macworld measured a 22 percent multi-core gain over the M4 Max in Geekbench and an 8 percent single-core gain, while the M3 Ultra kept a 9 percent multi-core lead. In Cinebench 2024 the M5 Max’s GPU was 33 percent faster than the M4 Max and 10 percent faster than the M3 Ultra.

AppleInsider saw read and write speeds near 10 gigabytes per second on its 1TB unit, and Macworld wrote that “The faster SSD is worth it alone.” The 512GB base model is slower: AppleInsider measured reads peaking at about 6.4 gigabytes per second and writes at about 5.1. Our guide to running Google’s Gemma models on a mini PC covers what 36GB and 128GB of fast memory mean for local models.

M5 Ultra: two M5 Max chips joined

The standard M5 Ultra, two M5 Max chips linked by Apple’s UltraFusion interconnect, has a 30-core CPU (ten super cores and twenty performance cores), a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core Neural Engine, with 96GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. The build-to-order chip has 36 CPU cores and 80 GPU cores. Every M5 Ultra model runs 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth and takes up to 256GB of memory at launch; 512GB arrives in late October with the 36-core chip. Storage goes up to 16TB. It doubles the Media Engine to four video encode engines and four ProRes engines, and it weighs 8 pounds against 6 pounds for the M5 Max.

Ars Technica found its CPU 80 to 90 percent faster than the M5 Max in many tests and its GPU 50 to 80 percent faster, but its Geekbench multi-core lead was only about 26 percent, and the M5 Max finished a HandBrake H.264 encode faster. Engadget measured the same single-core speed as the M5 Max and multi-core and GPU gains of 20 to 30 percent. Against the M3 Ultra, Ars measured about 30 percent faster single-core, 50 percent faster multi-core, and 33 to 66 percent faster GPU results.

Token generation follows memory bandwidth, so the Ultra’s 1.2TB/s gives it its clearest lead in local AI. Alex Ziskind measured 1,039GB/s of GPU memory bandwidth on a 256GB M5 Ultra, about 85 percent of Apple’s rating and 1.4 times the M3 Ultra, and token generation rose about 1.5 times over the M3 Ultra. Prompt processing was up to about four times faster on long prompts, but only 1.6 times faster on a prompt of about 350 tokens. In a second test against two linked NVIDIA DGX Spark units, the Mac matched or beat them on token generation and was slower at reading long prompts.

Ports, displays, and networking

The back carries four Thunderbolt 5 ports at up to 120Gb/s, two USB-A ports at 5Gb/s, HDMI 2.1, 10Gb Ethernet, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and the power inlet. On the front, the M5 Max model has two USB-C ports at 10Gb/s and a UHS-II SD card slot; the M5 Ultra model replaces those USB-C ports with two more Thunderbolt 5 ports. AppleInsider named the 10Gb/s front ports as the only weakness in the M5 Max’s connectivity, and Bobby Tonelli wished the SD slot had become a CFexpress Type B slot.

The M5 Max drives up to five external displays: four at 6K and 60Hz plus a fifth at 5K over HDMI, or two at 8K and 60Hz plus a third over HDMI. The M5 Ultra drives up to eight displays at 6K and 60Hz, or four at 8K and 60Hz. One Thunderbolt port can carry up to four displays on either chip. Thunderbolt 5 also supports genlock and RDMA clustering, which pools the memory of up to four Mac Studios for models too large for one machine. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 are standard, though AppleInsider recommended 10Gb Ethernet for work traffic.

Noise, heat, and power

The Mac Studio is quiet in most work, and loud only under a sustained full GPU load. MacStories ran local AI agents on an M5 Ultra all day and wrote: “In my day-to-day use, when I was running Flash-Next oQ4e all the time, I could never hear the fan of the Studio on my desk unless I placed my ear directly on top of the computer.” Engadget heard the fan only while gaming, and PetaPixel listed the M5 Max as silent.

Pushed hard, the M5 Ultra runs hotter and draws much more power than the M3 Ultra it replaces. Alex Ziskind measured over 400 watts during heavy GPU work against almost 200 watts for the M3 Ultra, heard the M5 Ultra’s fan first, and found the case running warmer. Wired also listed heat as a con and wrote: “You definitely don’t want to touch it or set anything on top of it.” In Ars Technica’s CPU video transcode, the M5 Max and M5 Ultra both averaged about 75 watts. Apple rates the internal power supply at 480 watts of maximum continuous power.

Reviewer Insights

AppleInsider: the M5 Max is the pick

AppleInsider gave the M5 Max model 5 out of 5. Beyond the Xcode and chemistry results, a CPU-heavy fluid simulation took 5 minutes 12 seconds against 6 minutes on the M3 Ultra and 7 minutes 22 seconds on the M4 Max, and a GPU-heavy image enhancement test finished in 2 minutes 4 seconds. AppleInsider faulted the USB-C front ports, the starting price, and the unchanged design and ports. On which model to buy, it wrote: “For most nearly every Mac Studio buyer with work to do, the M5 Max is the sensible pick.”

Macworld: the SSD is the reason to upgrade

Macworld’s review unit, tested by Roman Loyola, was an M5 Max with the 40-core GPU, 128GB of memory, and a 4TB SSD. He described the CPU and GPU gains as a marginal boost over the last generation and the SSD improvement as dramatic, enough that owners of an M4 Max or M3 Ultra Mac Studio should consider upgrading. His only listed con was memory that cannot be upgraded. He noted that the SSD is removable and can be replaced by the owner, though not easily.

PetaPixel (M5 Max): the best Mac it has tested for photo and video

Jeremy Gray at PetaPixel scored an M5 Max with 128GB of memory and a 4TB SSD 9.5 out of 10. It set a new record in PetaPixel’s Premiere Pro test, came close to the M3 Ultra Mac Studio in Lightroom Classic, and almost matched it in DaVinci Resolve. Gray recommended it over the M5 Ultra for most photographers and video editors. His complaints were the price of memory and storage upgrades and the audio: “If I had to knock the Mac Studio for something, it’s that its built-in speakers are not very good and that I’d prefer a front-facing headphone jack.”

PetaPixel (M5 Ultra): a Mac Pro in a small case

In a separate M5 Ultra review, PetaPixel gave the 36-core, 80-core GPU configuration 10 out of 10 and argued that it replaces the discontinued Mac Pro: “The Mac Pro died in name only.” It led PetaPixel’s Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve results, while Photoshop showed little gain over the M5 Max. The review still pointed most photo and video editors to the M5 Max model and reserved the Ultra for video editors and professionals doing billable work.

Ars Technica: fast local AI at a steep price

Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica wrote that “The M5 Ultra is, by almost every measure, the fastest Apple Silicon processor built so far,” and found its neural accelerators made locally run models feel more responsive. He used it to run a coding-capable model locally and called the experience fun and useful. He objected to price increases that start at 25 percent over the previous generation, and to an Ultra that has twice the resources of the M5 Max but usually cannot deliver twice the speed.

Engadget: the M5 Max is the better value

Engadget’s review unit, a 36-core M5 Ultra with 256GB of memory and a 2TB SSD, transcribed a 70-minute podcast in 18 seconds in MacWhisper, less than a quarter of the time the M4 Max Mac Studio needed, and it played eight simultaneous 8K ProRes tracks in real time on a 4K timeline with 4K monitoring, though not on an 8K timeline. A game ran at 4K on Ultra settings at an average above 80 fps. Steve Dent scored it 8.9 out of 10 and wrote: “Though incredibly powerful, the leap in performance over the M5 Max-powered Studio can’t justify that extra cash, unless you’re a hardcore power user.”

Tom’s Hardware: local AI strength, gaming weakness

Andrew E. Freedman at Tom’s Hardware found the M5 Ultra ahead of NVIDIA’s DGX Spark in prompt processing and tokens per second, and listed the 1.2TB/s memory throughput, the small quiet design, and the port selection as pros, against pricey memory and SSD upgrades and no upgrades after purchase. Freedman wrote that “Really, its biggest weakness is in gaming, for professionals who may want to do that on the side,” adding: “Discrete GPUs still win there.”

PCMag: Editors’ Choice for CPU speed and memory options

PCMag gave the 36-core M5 Ultra 4.5 out of 5 and an Editors’ Choice award; Brian Westover cited its CPU performance, memory options for local AI, and Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7, and 10Gb Ethernet. On the downside, he listed upgrade pricing, graphics performance behind flagship NVIDIA GPUs, and no ISV certification for engineering and medical software, noting that “Apple critics will call out that it’s a locked-down system with no upgrade options after purchase and no formal ISV certifications.”

CNET: fast and quiet, limited by fixed memory

Lori Grunin at CNET rated the M5 Ultra model 9.3 and called it fast, quiet, compact, and able to cluster. She faulted memory that cannot be upgraded, with no option between 96GB and 256GB, and two fewer Thunderbolt ports on the M5 Max model; she also found memory upgrades costly. She added: “None of this would be a big problem if you could upgrade the memory in the Studio.” She also noted that few Mac games can use the GPU’s power.

MacStories: local AI agents on the M5 Ultra

MacStories tested a 256GB M5 Ultra against an M3 Ultra and an RTX 5090 gaming PC over four days. Token generation was about 70 percent faster than the M3 Ultra on average and prompt processing about 150 percent faster, which made local models usable as the reviewer’s default agent models. The RTX 5090 PC stayed faster on both measures, but the Mac was smaller and quieter and could run larger models in its unified memory.

Wired: fast for local AI, hot under load

Wired’s 9 out of 10 from Luke Larsen came with heat listed as a con. He found the M5 Ultra model fast for local AI and gaming and small for its power. He wrote that “The astounding part about the Ultra is that, in some cases, it really doubles performance over the Max.” GPU performance behind NVIDIA and cheaper dedicated AI boxes were his other complaints.

Bobby Tonelli: more machine than photo work needs

Bobby Tonelli tested a 36-core M5 Ultra with 256GB of memory and 4TB of storage against an M3 Ultra Mac Studio. The Blender Classroom scene rendered in 1 minute 39 seconds against 1 minute 59 seconds, and a roughly seven-minute 4K DaVinci Resolve project exported to H.264 in 43 seconds against 59 seconds. For photo work and light video editing, he said: “It’s kind of like having an F1 car and going to the grocery store.” He said you can get by with an M5 Max, do a really good job with it, and probably save some money, while local AI work justifies the Ultra.

Alex Ziskind: developer and local LLM tests

Alex Ziskind ran the M5 Ultra and M3 Ultra side by side with the same llama.cpp and MLX builds. His prompt processing results matched Apple’s four-times claim on long prompts, and his token generation results tracked the bandwidth gain. On developer work alone, he said: “if you’re buying this machine just for developer tasks, let me tell you something, it’s overkill.” In his DGX Spark comparison, switching a DeepSeek model from llama.cpp to MLX raised the Mac’s generation speed to 53 tokens per second.

Buy the M5 Max unless you run large AI models or bill for render time

The M5 Max model fits photographers, video editors, music producers, and developers who want more than a Mac mini offers. PetaPixel found it close to the M3 Ultra in Lightroom and Resolve, and AppleInsider and Macworld measured much faster storage. Step past the 512GB base SSD if you can, since larger SSDs measured faster and Apple sells no SSD upgrades. If an M5 Pro covers your work, the 2026 Mac mini is smaller and costs far less.

The M5 Ultra model is for local AI work that needs 96GB to 512GB of fast memory, and for video and 3D professionals whose time is billed. Skip either model if you need internal upgrades, Windows games, or a GPU that matches NVIDIA’s best. To compare it with other small desktops, use Starry Hope’s Mini PC Comparison Tool.

Upgrades

Accessories that fit the Mac Studio (2026)'s USB4 or Thunderbolt ports.

eGPU enclosureRazer

Core X V2

A Thunderbolt 5 enclosure that Razer lists as working with Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 hosts; it fits a four-slot card and needs an ATX power supply.

List price $349.99

Buying options

eGPU enclosureMinisforum

DEG2 eGPU Dock

Connects over USB4 or Thunderbolt 5, with an OCuLink input behind a switch, and adds an M.2 slot; it needs an ATX or SFX power supply.

List price $259.90

Buying options

eGPU enclosureSonnet

Breakaway Box 850 T5

Has an 850W power supply built in, so only the graphics card is extra, and works with Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 Windows PCs.

List price $599.99

Buying options

Thunderbolt/USB4 dockCalDigit

TS4 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

An 18-port dock that CalDigit lists for Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 hosts, with 2.5GbE and a DisplayPort 1.4 output.

List price $379.99

Buying options

Thunderbolt/USB4 dockPlugable

TBT4-UD5 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

Two HDMI ports drive two 4K60 monitors from one Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 port on a Windows PC.

List price $199.95

Buying options

Thunderbolt/USB4 dockUGREEN

Revodok Max 208 Thunderbolt 4 Dock

Adds three Thunderbolt 4 ports for dual 4K60 displays plus gigabit Ethernet; it has no HDMI port, so monitors connect over USB-C or an adapter.

List price $169.98

Buying options

Frequently Asked Questions