New Mac Studio's Biggest Upgrade Isn't the M5 Ultra Chip

Ahead of the new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips launching this Tuesday, the first reviews of the computer have been shared by selected tech websites and YouTube channels. According to one review published by Macworld ‘s Roman Loyola, the biggest upgrade isn’t even the M5 Ultra, but rather significantly faster storage speeds. "Typically, we start our reviews by looking at overall performance with Geekbench, and then we work our way through more specific aspects," he said.

"But the SSD performance is so overwhelmingly good, it’s the story here." Loyola ran Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test benchmark tool on the new Mac Studio with an 18-core M5 Max chip, 128GB of RAM, and a 4TB SSD, and the computer achieved around 2.6× faster SSD read speeds and around 2.1× faster SSD write speeds compared to a previous-generation Mac Studio with the M4 Max chip. The results are shown in the image below. Apple advertised up to 2× faster storage speeds for the new Mac Studio, and these benchmark results show an even bigger boost.

As always, real-world performance may vary, but expect significantly faster SSD speeds overall. M5 Ultra benchmark results already surfaced last week if you are interested in that. Unsurprisingly, the M5 Ultra is Apple’s fastest chip ever.

To the new M6 Mac mini ( review), early impressions of the most powerful Mac Studio are out ahead of tomorrow’s release as well. Here’s what reviewers are saying about the upgraded M5 Ultra Mac Studio so far.

At $11,299, the M5 Ultra’s extra performance over the M5 Max model is only worth it for select buyers. Apple Mac Studio (M5 Ultra) review: Huge AI and graphics power at a huge premium.

M5 Ultra Mac Studio reviews: local AI powerhouse. M6 Mac mini review: Apple’s most versatile Mac continues to shine Chance Miller Sep 21 2026.

Reviews Laptops & PCs Apple Mac Studio (M5 Ultra) review: Huge AI and graphics power at a huge premium At $11,299, the extra performance over the M5 Max model is only worth it for select buyers. It’s the only one equipped with the company’s mighty M5 Ultra processor (two M5 Max chips frankensteined together) and support for up to 512GB of unified memory.

With all that, it’s capable of incredible performance, despite the small size. This year, though, there’s an unpleasant twist.

Given that amount of memory, the Mac Studio is particularly vulnerable to the " RAMageddon " crisis that has seen memory prices soar over the last year. The M5 Max model jumped from a base $2,000 price to $2,500, but the M5 Ultra version now starts at $5,500, an enormous jump from the previous model’s $4,000 price.

Though incredibly powerful, the leap in performance over the M5 Max-powered Studio can’t justify that extra cash, unless you’re a hardcore power user. Hardware There’s nothing new to see with the Mac Studio’s design (again).

Based on Geekbench 7 results so far, it has up to around 30% faster single-core CPU performance and up to around 35% faster multi-core performance compared to the M3 Ultra. But, it comes at a steep cost.

In the U.S., the Mac Studio with a 36-core M5 Ultra starts at $6,799. Apple said the M5 Ultra has up to 1.25× faster single-threaded CPU performance and up to 1.3× faster multi-threaded CPU performance compared to the M3 Ultra, so the benchmark results roughly align with or even beat those advertised claims.

All in all, the new Mac Studio is super fast, with The Verge ‘s Antonio G. Di Benedetto describing the M5 Ultra model’s performance as "outrageous" and PCMag ‘s Brian Westover calling the computer "a serious powerhouse for top-tier local AI inference." The new Mac Studio and a new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro chip options have been available to pre-order since August 25 and launch this Tuesday, September 22.

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