Apple has opened orders for the highest configuration of its M5 Ultra Mac Studio, and the price reaches $29,799 when fully loaded with 512GB of unified memory and 16TB of storage. The configuration pairs the top-tier M5 Ultra chip — featuring a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine — with half a terabyte of unified memory that delivers 1.2TB/s of bandwidth. It represents the most extreme desktop Mac Apple has ever offered, aimed squarely at professionals who need enormous local compute, especially for on-device AI.
The M5 Ultra itself is a quad-die design that fuses two dual-die M5 Max chips via next-generation UltraFusion interconnect, effectively presenting them as a single system-on-chip. The 36-core CPU includes 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, while the 80-core GPU is Apple’s most powerful silicon GPU to date and, for the first time on an Ultra chip, includes Neural Accelerators in every core. Combined with the dedicated 32-core Neural Engine, this architecture produces large gains in AI workloads: Apple claims up to 4.3× the peak AI compute of the previous M3 Ultra and up to 9.8× that of the M1 Ultra. Graphics performance is also higher, with third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing and enhanced shader cores.
The standout specification is the memory. The 512GB unified memory option is available only with the 36-core CPU / 80-core GPU version of the M5 Ultra. It carries 1.2TB/s of bandwidth — 50 percent higher than the prior generation — and is shared across the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. Apple positions this specifically for running enormous large language models entirely on device, with hundreds of billions of parameters kept in memory and no need to count tokens or pay ongoing cloud inference costs. The machine also includes a more capable media engine with twice the video encode and decode blocks of the M5 Max, enabling simultaneous playback of up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 at 30 fps, plus hardware support for H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and AV1 decode.
Connectivity and expansion remain strong. The Mac Studio offers up to six Thunderbolt 5 ports (each capable of 120Gb/s), Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via Apple’s N1 chip, HDMI, and support for up to eight external displays. Multiple Mac Studios can be clustered over Thunderbolt 5 with RDMA to pool memory for even larger distributed AI inference workloads; Apple has demonstrated clusters of four systems delivering up to 3× the inference performance of a single machine. Storage uses a next-generation SSD architecture that Apple says is up to twice as fast as the previous generation, with the fully loaded configuration offering 16TB.
These capabilities map to a narrow but high-value set of users. AI researchers, data scientists, and developers working with frontier-scale local models or fine-tuning large datasets are the clearest audience; the combination of memory capacity, bandwidth, and Neural Accelerators lets them keep massive models resident and private. VFX artists and filmmakers can color-grade or composite uncompressed 8K timelines in real time and render complex simulations. 3D artists and game developers benefit from the ray-tracing hardware and high GPU core count for real-time visualization. Musicians, photographers, and software engineers handling large multi-track sessions, high-resolution image libraries, or lengthy compilation and test suites also fit. In short, it is a tool for studios, research labs, and individual professionals whose work is constrained by memory capacity or who prioritize on-device privacy and predictable costs over cloud services.
Pricing context is stark. The base M5 Ultra Mac Studio starts at $5,499 with a 30-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 96GB of memory, and 1TB of storage. Moving to the 36-core / 80-core chip adds $1,300. The 512GB memory upgrade alone costs $15,500, bringing a 1TB configuration to $22,299. Adding the maximum 16TB SSD contributes another $7,500, for the $29,799 total. That is more than some new cars, and the memory premium is dramatically higher than the $4,000 512GB option previously offered on the M3 Ultra. Orders for the 512GB configuration began in late October 2026, with deliveries expected in late November to early December.
@Austen Makes a Tesla seem quite affordable!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2026
For most buyers the lower configurations (or even the M5 Max models that top out at 128GB) will be sufficient. For those whose workloads genuinely require half a terabyte of high-bandwidth unified memory and the absolute top of Apple’s silicon stack, the fully loaded Mac Studio is now available—at a price that reflects both its performance and the current cost of high-capacity memory.
MacDailyNews Take: This is one of those “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it” machines. If your work actually requires holding a 400-billion-parameter model in memory, or grading multiple uncompressed 8K streams, or running large-scale local simulations without constant cloud round-trips, the $29,799 price stops being the main question. The question becomes whether one machine is enough, or whether you need multiple units clustered together.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
Like 🙂 or dislike 🙁 this post below!
Finally! A computer for the rest of us.
Interesting.
The lead time for this maxed out machine if ordered today is 10-12 weeks. For the Studio Ultra I ordered (less memory and smaller storage) the lead time if ordered today is 13 – 15 weeks. I ordered my Studio Ultra several weeks ago and the latest delivery date update from Apple suggests the first week of February.
Clearly, Apple is trying to cater to the very few that need these maxed out Studio Ultras.
Oh, FYI. As far as this being the most maxed out Mac ever, for its day the 2019 Mac Pro was far more capable with up through 1.5 TB of RAM and up through 32 TB of storage in PCIe cards with multiple dual GPU video cards at once. The 2019 Mac Pro was a true beast when it was introduced. Of course, seven years later this maxed out Studio Ultra is much faster by far.
That is an extreme price, but I understand that people in the media industry deserve the absolute best that tech can offer. Right now my Apple setup consists of just an iPhone but eventually I want to get a Mac Mini. This setup is a bit hardcore for a simple Esperanto blog/newsletter I’m doing for a local “klubo” in my area so I must take what I can but it’s great that they have one for serious power users.
Bonega laboro to Apple on their part.
The 1.5 TB of RAM was “only” capable of 140 GB/sec, and it is not directly accessible by the GPU(s). The memory bandwidth of the unified memory in the M5 Ultra is 1.2 TB/s and all of it is directly accessible by the GPU(s). The 2019 Mac Pro is easily outclassed by the Studio’s ability to quickly process huge amounts of data and running large AI models.