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Apple Unveils New Mac Studio With M5 Max and M5 Ultra Chips
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Apple fanboy
macrumors Ivy Bridge
I mean given I just dropped £7,000 you'd think they would throw in free express delivery options.
Just ordered my Mac Studio M5 Max to replace my 2017 Intel iMac. I am so glad that I didn't have to wait another 6 months! Thank you Apple!
You do. My understanding of the lease program is you lease it for a specific term and at the end of the term you can buy it outright for the difference between the total lease payments and the purchase price (at the time you started the lease).
Essentially the Apple Update program allows you the ability to use it for a period of time and then either return it or buy it outright. If you buy it outright the total cost would be the same as if you had purchased it from the beginning.
That said I have not used the program so my understanding may be in error. I recommend investigating as it seems like it is a great program.
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You are correct.
They will even automatically bump your payments to another 6 months of installments at the end of the lease if you don't buy it out right away, which shrinks that balloon payment a bit.
Apple fanboy
macrumors Ivy Bridge
Enjoy. I'm coming from a Mac mini 2018 myself, so my M5 Ultra will make photo editing a joy compared to the pain it is right now.
Little new Baby Mac CPU just hanging out while the bigger kids get all the attention today.
Chet-NYC
macrumors regular
While always nice to see new and improved hardware, the cost increases are mind numbing.
In March 2025, I purchased at M4 Max Mac Studio with 64gb of Unified Memory, a 1Tb SSD, and 40 core GPU. The education price was $2609. Today, the M5 Max with the same memory, SSD, and GPU is $3469 (also in the education store): $860 more expensive.
That's a 33% increase. I understand all the reasons for the price jump, but that doesn't make it any less mind numbing.
In March 2025, I purchased at M4 Max Mac Studio with 64gb of Unified Memory, a 1Tb SSD, and 40 core GPU. The education price was $2609. Today, the M5 Max with the same memory, SSD, and GPU is $3469 (also in the education store): $860 more expensive.
That's a 33% increase. I understand all the reasons for the price jump, but that doesn't make it any less mind numbing.
Apple fanboy
macrumors Ivy Bridge
Yes but since 2025 I have had a 3% pay increase so that is the same.... Oh wait..... Dam it!
They're clearly offering the lower starting storage amounts to soften that sticker shock by a few hundred dollars. I think it's kind of a joke for 512gb in a $2499 computer too. I'm sure the sku is there for institutional buyers like companies and schools where they actively don't want people saving lots of work to a local machine. It's a valid use case. They know everyone else wants at least 2TB and that's getting up there now $$$$.
The Mac Studio versions of the Max chip do run hotter than the MacBook versions because they have a giant active heat sink attached. So I'm sure the Mac Studio lower sku will do much better than the MacBook Pro 16" which is thermal throttled pretty hard. So you are getting a bit more performance in the Studio version of the same chip.
According to Mark Gurman, the M6 Max/Ultra chip does not exist and Mac Studio will go straight to M7 Max/Ultra in 2028.
Black_Mage
Contributor
Whoops. I did a little digging and realized where I messed up. The 614 GB is the bandwidth of the RAM for the new Studio. The 786 GB is from speculation that on the new Studio.
M5 Ultra Mac Studio Could Launch in 2026 With Up to 768GB of RAM
Despite price increases across the Mac line, Apple is still planning to release a new Mac Studio as soon as this year, reports Bloomberg. Apple plans to introduce a new M5 Ultra chip as the final option in the M5 family before it transitions to the M6, M7, M7 Pro, and M7 Max. The M5 Ultra...
forums.macrumors.com
My excuse is that I’m getting old and it’s difficult keeping up with all these specs and numbers and stuff.
rafark
macrumors 68020
I didn’t know people and companies buy products without looking at the price first. In that case Apple should charge a million a pop for these!
JosephAW
macrumors 604
Yeah I’m thinking of departing from My M2 Mac Studio Max, it’s still pretty powerful, was just running some image and video generation on it today. 🙄
anthony13
macrumors 65816
tothemoonsands
macrumors 6502a
It was hard to wake up and immediately have to rush to make the purchase, but I did so thinking that it was quite likely by end of day availability would be pushing into 2027. Give it a few more weeks and conceivably they will be “unavailable” until a new drop. It’s a crazy time we are living in!
I was set to upgrade my M1 Ultra Maxed out spec with a m5 Ultra similar spec but MAN! 11k for the machine I want.
I'm also thinking about how fine my current machine feels... And if I really should upgrade at all. I have been waiting and waiting for the m5 drop, but man how times have changed. Not just rising costs from Apple, but more economic pressure in general. Plus, my "purchasing power" doesn't qualtiy for a lease of this magnitude with Klarna.
I'm feeling so disappointed! Argh.
I'm also thinking about how fine my current machine feels... And if I really should upgrade at all. I have been waiting and waiting for the m5 drop, but man how times have changed. Not just rising costs from Apple, but more economic pressure in general. Plus, my "purchasing power" doesn't qualtiy for a lease of this magnitude with Klarna.
I'm feeling so disappointed! Argh.
AI models, containers, VMs, development frameworks for the development crowd and huge amounts of video for the editing crowd.
And for me, a bit of everything. I was planning to buy the max version half year ago which is when it should have been launched - the chips were shipping with the MBP. Paper launching it this delayed - alongside the M6 - means I'll wait a little longer for the M6 max version.
The new Studios (M5 Max and M5 Ultra) refer to "super cores' and "performance" cores. I have the M3 Ultra Studio and it came with Performance and Efficiency cores. While I understand what the Performance core is, I do not understand what the "super core" is. So what is the "super core", say compared to the Performance core?
It now seems the new Studios no longer have Efficiency cores, right?
I attach a screenshot of what Siri-AI spat out when asking it for a response to this.
It now seems the new Studios no longer have Efficiency cores, right?
I attach a screenshot of what Siri-AI spat out when asking it for a response to this.
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rp2011
macrumors 68040
Yep, Comparable price but you would never have the power of the Max chip so the question is why? Doesn't make any sense to go with the Pro if you are going to upgrade it even a little bit. And if anyone is wondering about a "pro" device then they would more than likely want to upgrade the 16GB of RAM and get at the very least a 500GB drive. So the Pro doesn't make a lick of sense.
mansplains
macrumors 68000
Be sure to get 512 GB of RAM to cement two years of operation.
Well, this is awkward. I was all set to hit the buy button on an M5 Ultra to replace my M3 Ultra for graphics work, but the leap in CPU performance – just 25% to 30% over the M3 Ultra – is really underwhelming. And the roughly 1.8x GPU uptick is useful, but my chosen spec is over £12K. Even with selling the M3 Ultra that's still lot of coin for nowhere near a doubling of performance. Bit disappointing after all the hype.