Apple Mac Studio M5 Ultra Review Roundup: Fast, Expensive, Built for Pros and Local AI

TechRadar said it studied 10 Mac Studio articles to assess real-world performance gains and whether the M5 Ultra can justify its full cost. Tom’s Hardware called the top-spec Mac Studio “a small powerhouse PC with strong performance.” Computerworld called it “a genuine step up,” and Tom’s Guide dubbed it “the best kind of overkill.” BGR described it as an ultra-powerful video editing workstation. Ars Technica said its local AI was “a lot of fun,” while MacStories called it “a dream machine for local AI agents.”

Cost is the main dividing line. TechRadar reported that the base M5 Max configuration is priced at $2,500, while the entry-point M5 Ultra comes in around $5,500. Moving to 256GB of memory on the Ultra chip adds roughly $4,000 on its own, and a fully maxed-out configuration can reach close to or just over $18,000. Reviews used phrases such as “extremely expensive,” “god-tier price” and “well outside the range of what most people want to spend on a desktop computer.” Engadget said the leap in performance over the M5 Max-powered Studio cannot justify the extra cash unless the buyer is a hardcore power user. PCMag called it “a high-stakes investment tailored strictly for serious pros.” CNET said its price “isn’t out of line by workstation standards, and there’s simply nothing else like the Mac Studio.” AppleInsider pointed out that these are “the most powerful Macs ever.”

The physical design remains unchanged from earlier generations, keeping the same compact aluminum enclosure and port layout that is “easy to place almost anywhere on your desk.” The Ultra weighs two pounds more than the Max because of a heavier heatsink cooling system. The familiar shell now houses Wi-Fi 7, 10Gb Ethernet and two ultra-fast Thunderbolt 5 connectors up front, delivering “up to a blazing 120 Gbps speeds.” TechRadar noted that users can switch to more powerful hardware without changing their desk layout or replacing their favorite peripherals.

The M5 Ultra packs a 36-core CPU with a higher core count than the M3 Ultra, targeting demanding multi-threaded workloads. In benchmark tests, the new Mac Studio had single-core performance comparable to its M4 Max-powered predecessor and roughly the same as the M5 Max version. In multi-core testing, the M5 Ultra “destroyed the old Mac Studio M3 Ultra,” but testing showed that the Ultra’s Geekbench multi-core performance was only around 26 percent faster than the Max. The roundup listed Geekbench 6 multi-core scores of 37,777 from Tom’s Guide and 38,444 from Ars Technica, alongside Geekbench 7 multi-core scores of 52,185 from Engadget, 52,293 from Tom’s Hardware and 52,350 from Computerworld.

Its 80-core GPU provides the graphics engine, with dedicated Neural Accelerators built into the architecture for accelerated AI workloads. GPU benchmarks were called “impressive,” with performance against the older M3 Ultra now around 33 to 66 percent faster. However, its graphics performance “fell far behind the RTX 5090 system.” Gaming was found to be the Mac Studio’s “biggest weakness.” In some instances, it ran quieter than a 5090 gaming desktop, and it could handle modern titles with relative ease, particularly Apple Silicon-optimized games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, both of which “ran smoothly” in tests. But it “can’t quite match the performance” of true gaming PCs. For professionals looking for a workstation that plays games on the side, “discrete GPUs still win.” Reviewers agreed that the Mac Studio M5 Ultra is built for local AI work, with Ars Technica and MacStories highlighting its appeal for AI agents and local AI tasks.