Rychiar
macrumors 601
I've heard and I saw the emails people were getting versus me getting an email saying "the original order will be fulfilled"
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2025 vs. 2026 Mac Studio Buyer's Guide: All Upgrades Compared
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FatLouie
macrumors 6502a
Are you certain about that starting price? I recall it being around $2000 for a base model. I might be mistaken.
TheOldChevy
macrumors 6502a
Your implicit question answers itself: this is to feed the AI bubble and the hardware $$$ out of it. These machines (besides the mini) are far too powerful for home/office usage and even for graphical workflows.
inventor7777
macrumors member
They raised the price earlier this year. It started as $1999 but they DID raise the price on the M4 before they discontinued it.
Daniel Alvarez Arribas
macrumors newbie
It strikes me that, to this day, one or several writers at MacRumors still do not understand or do not want to acknowledge that the "super" core type in the M5 Pro/Max/Ultra is simply the renamed "performance" core type from the base M5 (as well as the M4/A19 and earlier series). OTOH, what is now called the "performance" core type on the M5 Pro/Max/Ultra (and base M6) is factually an entirely new core type, with no precedent in earlier designs other than reusing the previous name of the current "super" cores. The new "performance" core type is more compact and efficient than what is now the "super" core type, less performant in absolute terms but featuring a higher compute density, which is what drives up the multi-core performance at optimized area. This should be clearly pointed out, but regularly is not. The article once more goes for an apple-to-apples comparison that is absolutely impossible to make in this case.
Summarized:
On M5 Pro/Max/Ultra + base M6: "super core" = old "performance core", "performance core" = entirely new core type
On base M5 as well as M4/A19 and earlier: "performance core" = current "super core"
This is talking core types/classes, not node shrinks or minor architectural upgrades.
In all fairness, Apple created an absolute mess that is a nightmare to explain; renaming an existing core type to something else while introducing an entirely new core type bearing its former name.
Summarized:
On M5 Pro/Max/Ultra + base M6: "super core" = old "performance core", "performance core" = entirely new core type
On base M5 as well as M4/A19 and earlier: "performance core" = current "super core"
This is talking core types/classes, not node shrinks or minor architectural upgrades.
In all fairness, Apple created an absolute mess that is a nightmare to explain; renaming an existing core type to something else while introducing an entirely new core type bearing its former name.
bbeagle
macrumors 68040
And that's still not the whole picture. When I ordered my custom M4 Max Studio in early 2025, it was about $2800. Now the similar configuration in an M5 Max Studio is $3750 - almost $1000 more.
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3D animators. I use blender and if you can cut my giant render times down from 12 hours to 4 hours, I can literally do 2-3 times as much work per day.
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That breaks down when you go above 100%, as is the case for all except one of these increases.
E.g., 3.9x faster is much more intuitively understandable than 290% faster.
And even below 100%, using the multiplier is just as easy to understand for the one value listed: 1.5x faster = 50% faster.
It's only when the increases are <10% that percentages are obviously better—e.g., 3.5% faster is more intutive than 1.035x faster, because of that zero after the decimal.
Last August I got a refurb base M4 Max Studio for about $1,700 (got it from the Apple Japan refurb store while I was visiting there). Sure, the M5 Max is faster and all that but I’m still very happy with this machine. I don’t think I’d notice any difference in my day to day workflow.
The most demanding things I do are lots of VMs, a little video editing, and some light gaming. My Studio still works flawlessly and I don’t expect to need to upgrade anytime soon, especially considering the price increases compared to what I paid.
The most demanding things I do are lots of VMs, a little video editing, and some light gaming. My Studio still works flawlessly and I don’t expect to need to upgrade anytime soon, especially considering the price increases compared to what I paid.
I do “light” 3D, video games (Unity), Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut, Xcode, Substance Designer, Houdini, etc…
I have an M1 Ultra 64GB since launch day that has powered through like a champ, however, for this cycle around I preordered a M5 Max (64GB also) instead, it will ultimately feel a lot faster but thanks in big part to those impressive single core scores, M5 Ultra I felt it overkill… will leave the m1 ultra as a render, build machine and agent of sorts in any case.
It was very much an intentional marketing decision to change the name. But it only impacts (some ) customers and (some) media outlets. Internally and with partners, engineers and product managers at Apple use the engineering codenames to refer to specific cores and core type implementations. This is for each of the product lines (Macs, iPads, iPhones, etc). This results in no confusion for any of them, but I guess the marketing folk think this would be too much for the general public to handle. It seems strange to me because Intel, AMD, IBM, etc, all have a long history of communicating to the press and general consumers about specific cores/core types and I don’t think there has been a real problem. The people who don’t care at all aren’t going to follow the “super” vs “performance” vs “efficiency” nomenclature anyway. I doubt that cohort is even going to follow how many total cores each SKU has from generation to generation, but that would be the maximum they would follow. They would just want to know that the 2026 model is better than the 2025 model. Or cheaper. Or both. Those of us who do care what more specifics and no confusion.
EdwardC
macrumors 6502a
Yeah Micro Center had them last spring new for $1,699.00 (m4 Max base model). I went in for a M4 Pro Mini and walked out with a Studio instead. Way more power than I need so I see it living on my desk for the indefinite future (have Apple Care on it).
I think the Studio is so awesome and I envy how powerful it is. I wish I needed one, but sadly even a Neo is enough for my home computer needs.
Yes, the faster internal SSD is impressive IMO as well. Suspect read/write rates will be in the region of 14,000 MB/s / 20,000 MB/s. My M3 Ultra's 2TB delivers 6,900 MB/s for reads and some 9,721 MB/s for writes.
If your workload moves ***large*** files around frequently this extra 2x speeds will certainly be noticeable.
In addition, using TB5 external SSDs will not match the M5 Ultra's internal Apple SSD data transfer rates. The only way external TB5 SSDs will compete with the M5 Ultra's internal SSD will for the external TB5 SSDs to be RAIDed. For example, today I have two 4TB OWC Envoy Pro Ultra units setup as RAID-0 with each connected to their own TB5 port on my M3 Ultra, and it delivers 12,600 MB/s for reads and ~8,500 MB/s for writes. I suspect the write rate is being somewhat limited by the internal write cache size of the OWC Envoy Pro Ultra SSD. So, to have fast external SSDs to match the M5 Ultra's internal SSD data rates, one will need to have at least 3 of them as RAID-0 with each needing to be connected to separate TB 5 ports- that is three (3) TB5 ports will be needed, and this will deplete the 6 TB5 ports the M5 Ultra has down to three (3). Then of course, ***today*** these OWC TB5 4TB SSDs costs are excessive at around $1,000 to $1,200 each due to the recent price increases for memory and SSDs. Personally, I was lucky as I was able to secure two of these 4TB OWC units when initially offered for pre-order at $450 each when they first surfaced for sale.
jayducharme
macrumors 603
Currently when I render most videos on my M2 Max Studio, I often go out to the kitchen and have lunch. Then when I return, the rendering has usually completed. I would be happy not to have to schedule my lunch around rendering a video. My current Studio is definitely light years faster than my G5 Mac Pro, which often would have to render overnight. So the tech has come a long way. But I guess I'm getting spoiled and the faster the job can finish, the happier I am.
D_J
macrumors member
If you're doing a trade-in, might want to check the value. I also had an M4 Max Studio order pending, but cancelled it and reordered to get $200 more on the trade value.