Apple Unveils New Mac Studio With M5 Max and M5 Ultra Chips

[Haiku_Oezu]

My M1 Mac Studio is still going strong but I'd be lying if I wasn't considering an early upgrade
I'll be checking the performance uplift closely on these ones

 

[Happy_John]

This has more to do with what I see going forward. I recently retired (but still do a lot of my own video and photo work) and I was already realizing that a proper upgrade to my current desktop would become financially unviable a few years down the road. So this might have been my last Mac desktop purchase. And I wanted to do it now while I could, gaining another 5-7 years at a minimum. But it looks like the point of financial unviability arrived today. It’s now likely that when my M2 Max reaches the true end of its service life for me, it will not be replaced. I have arrived at Peak Apple in my household.

Fair enough, but I’m not sure why you don’t think you’ll get another 5-7 years out of your current setup.

Or another way to look at it - the base M4 chip has more or less the same performance as the M2 pro chip, slighter better in some areas, slightly worse in others.

As SoC performance improves, it’s an option to go for later generation but lower tier SoC.

It will be interesting to see how the base M6 chip compares to a M2 Max. Probably lower, but if a base M7 chip is comparable, or slightly better, just getting an M7 or M8 Mac mini in a year or two might easily fit your longevity needs.

 

[bzgnyc2]

That would be wasteful for key buyers who want it for the CPU/GPU/RAM dimensions and don't need any extra local/internal storage. Adding $300 or even $200 to the price would have hurt at the low-end.

Granted probably only would have cost them $100 in build costs. On the flip side, it may have constrained production elsewhere given the supply crunch (i.e. there simply isn't surplus NAND/SSD to go around).

@Lemonice perhaps you should share which part of the above you disagree with?

 

[jz0309]

Another Mac Studio with M2 Max chip owner here. I had intended to upgrade this year but I’m having a real problem justifying it. My current machine has 64 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. I wanted 64 gigs again and 2 TB. Even with the trade-in for my M2 Max Studio, I’m just not sure I can do this.

My M1Max 64GB 4TB was around 3800 and I got it at discount at B&H, now the equivalent is 5249, so I'll extend AC+ on mine for as long as possible.
I have no issues with performance, just as quick as it used to be so no need to upgrade anyway

 

[xxray]

I’ve been wanting 128GB of RAM but the price of 64GB. Will I be happy with 64GB for local LLM? A lot of the models these days are around 30b parameters…

 

[Mescagnus]

Finally! Ordered Mac Studio M5 Max 64GB to replace my Mac mini M4 Pro 64GB.

 

[masotime]

I'm sorry but this starting at 512GB storage is an insult when Apple's onboard models chew up 60-80 gigabytes just to start. 1TB should be base to match the MacBook Pro. Not sure wtf they're thinking.

The starting storage on the M6 Mini is 256GB.

I actually chose this option, but 32GB RAM. Storage is easily supplemented by external NVMe drives. I got lucky and have several 2 and 4TB NVMe sticks when they were still about $100 for 2TB.

 

[maflynn]

Looks impressive but way too expensive for me

 

[hajime]

I'm sorry but this starting at 512GB storage is an insult when Apple's onboard models chew up 60-80 gigabytes just to start. 1TB should be base to match the MacBook Pro. Not sure wtf they're thinking.

Profit Profit Profit. If you want more storage, you pay more for the upgrade.

 

[hajime]

Looks impressive but way too expensive for me

I would prefer the original Apple selling products for the very small population of the then "computer whiz" over the current Apple selling Luxury products for the mass general public as a symbol of wealth.

 

[zephonic]

And is anybody absolutely non-shocked to see that a base Mac Studio Ultra is now nearly the price of a discontinued Mac Pro? From $5499...

 

[Patroclus]

M5 Ultra comes with PCIe Gen 6

My prediction. Sequential Read: 28,000 – 32,000 MB/s
Sequential Write: 25,000+ MB/s+

Random 4K Read: 2.5 Million+ IOPS


View attachment 2655646

But PCIe connection is via Thunderbolt right? Max Thunderbolt 5 throughput is 120GB/sc. aren’t pcie bandwidth faster?

 

[Pezimak]

I am thinking of getting a Studio and selling my MB Pro, but man is it a tough pill to swallow that Apple will seemingly always keep it a generation behind all it's other computers, and yet charge thousands for it! And I see they have now lowered the entry RAM too to 48GB.. And it is £400 to go from 48GB to 64GB and I am VERY certain it is NOT costing Apple that much!

It will be very interesting to see comparisons on performance of the M5 Max Studio VS the M6 Max MacBook Pro or Ultra with that extra thermal headroom.

 

[jimmy_john]

M3 Ultra is trash

 

[Happy_John]

I would prefer the original Apple selling products for the very small population of the then "computer whiz" over the current Apple selling Luxury products for the general public.

The general public market is far bigger than the computer Wizz market.

Success means going mainstream. Apple are too big to prioritise the types of customer they had in the 68k / ppc days.

 

[hajime]

The general public market is far bigger than the computer Wizz market.

Success means going mainstream. Apple are too big to prioritise the types of customer they had in the 68k / ppc days.

That is unfortunately true.

 

[forumBuddy]

Going from base 512Gb storage to 1Tb is $300… are we back to 2010?

 

[zephonic]

The general public market is far bigger than the computer Wizz market.

Success means going mainstream. Apple are too big to prioritise the types of customer they had in the 68k / ppc days.

And also, it is debatable that there is still a meaningful difference in terms of what tech they need. Form factor maybe, mostly a matter of preference, but under the hood things have equalized substantially.

 

[Pezimak]

Looks impressive but way too expensive for me

You got in there at the right time matey.. Back when the Studio was a kinda secret Apple bargain, for what you got.

 

[c.s.]

A couple years ago I got the M2 Max with 64GB Ram and 1TB storage, for $2,200. To get that much Ram and storage with this new update costs $3,800.

 

[Happy_John]

You got in there at the right time matey.. Back when the Studio was a kinda secret Apple bargain, for what you got.

Cynically, getting rid of the Mac Pro meant the Studio could move from mid tier to top tier, and be priced accordingly.

 

[vegetassj4]

How many different chips on sale now?

 

[Zwhaler]

I hope Apple read these forums and see how people react to astronomically ridiculous pricing.

If fewer people buy and Apple makes the same profits, it’s a win for them. If Apple makes a hint more profit than previously… well, you know.

 

[ewestlund]

I pre-ordered a 30-core / 96gb / 2tb model with an education discount. $5550. This will work well for my specific needs. The 256gb would be an indulgence, I think, at an extra $4000. Historically this has been enough storage.

Interestingly, a 128gb M5 Max is only $200 cheaper as spec'd. You trade lower memory bandwidth and an extra 32gb of memory for 32gb fewer, more bandwidth, and 12 extra cores. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

The larger models may be nice for experimenting, but the speed would be unbearable. The types of LLM work that are performant enough for me to be useful will run on this.

I will sell my 36gb M4 Max / 2tb (aftermarket) Mac Studio and an M4 mac mini I have lying around. A bit of an indulgence, but I've waited through 5 generations of chips to finally buy the big core CPU.

 

[Happy_John]

If fewer people buy and Apple makes the same profits, it’s a win for them. If Apple makes a hint more profit than previously… well, you know.

This. It’s interesting seeing what happening at the purchasing end of the tech industry - across the board ( not just Apple ) mid-tier products sales have dropped the most, then entry-level / budget, but high-end/premium product sales have not dropped, or have barely dropped.

Irrespective of how people are economically hurting, very rich people still have lots of money to spend, and they are spending it on the most expensive products. It’s he people who are not very rich who are cutting back their spending, because they don’t have the same levels of discretionary income.

In terms of Apple, people may stress between buying a MacBook Air or a Neo, but the people buying MacBook pros will still buy MacBook Pros.

People will wait longer to upgrade their Mac minis, but ultra buyers will do it more often.