Apple unveiled a new Mac Studio on the 25th equipped with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips. Preorders began that day in the U.S. and other markets, with sales starting on September 22. South Korea is included in the first wave of launch countries, and preorders will open at 10 a.m. on the 27th.
Performance is split into two tiers. The M5 Max model features an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and up to 128GB of unified memory. Apple said AI performance is up to 3.9 times faster than the previous generation, and GPU performance has improved by up to 50%. The top-end M5 Ultra model offers up to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and up to 512GB of unified memory. Compared with the M3 Ultra, AI computation is up to 4.3 times faster, while graphics performance is up to 1.8 times faster.
◆ 512GB memory
The key selling point of this product is memory. Apple chips use a unified memory architecture in which the CPU and GPU share the same memory pool.
With the M5 Ultra model, users can choose up to 512GB of memory. Even large language models (LLMs) with hundreds of billions of parameters can be loaded entirely into memory and run directly on the device.
Because it does not need to pass through cloud servers like a chatbot service, company secrets or personal data do not leave the device, and there are no monthly usage fees. A memory bandwidth of up to 1.2TB per second supports the speed required to run large models.
Video production performance has also been improved. The M5 Ultra model can play back up to 33 streams of 8K high-definition video (ProRes 422, 30fps) simultaneously. Storage uses the latest PCIe Gen 6 SSD, doubling speed, and the system can connect up to eight monitors. The operating system is macOS 27, with support for Siri AI and Apple Intelligence.
◆ Four-unit cluster becomes a mini AI server… who is it for?
Another new feature is the ability to link multiple units together as one. The new Mac Studio supports Thunderbolt 5, which delivers speeds of up to 120Gb/s, as well as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) technology that lets computers directly exchange memory.
According to Apple, connecting four units boosts AI inference performance by up to three times compared with a single unit. This setup could allow research labs or startups that struggle to obtain expensive server GPUs to build a small AI server with a few Mac Studio machines. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 are also included in the Mac Studio for the first time.
Prices start at 4.29 million won for the M5 Max model and 9.49 million won for the M5 Ultra model. Both models will be released on September 22, and the 512GB unified-memory model will go on sale in late October. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, said, “The new Mac Studio, with neural accelerators directly integrated into the GPU and massive high-bandwidth unified memory, is the most powerful Mac ever.”
As demand grows for running high-performance AI directly on-device amid shortages of AI semiconductors and cloud cost burdens, Apple appears to be making an early bet on the on-device AI market in which users buy and own hardware instead of renting servers, drawing attention to how creators and developers will respond.
