What’s new: The 2026 Mac Studio gains M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, dramatically faster AI and graphics performance, faster SSD storage, increased memory bandwidth, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and enhanced professional connectivity.
Release date: Announced on August 25, 2026
On sale: Shipping starts on September 22, 2026 but the Mac Studio with 512GB of unified memory is coming in late October.
Apple has launched a new Mac Studio to replace the M4 Max and M3 Ultra model introduced 17 months ago, in March 2025. Externally, the 2026 Mac Studio retains what Apple calls its “signature compact design,” with the most significant upgrades taking place inside.
The previous generation was unusual because it mixed chip generations, pairing M4 Max with M3 Ultra. The 2026 models bring both tiers into the M5 family, with M5 Max and the new M5 Ultra. M5 Max offers an 18-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU, while M5 Ultra scales to a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU. Neural Accelerators are now built into every GPU core to boost AI performance.
Apple claims up to 1.3x faster CPU performance, 1.8x faster graphics and 4.3x faster AI performance, depending on the configuration and workload. M5 Max also adds third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while M5 Ultra can play up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video simultaneously. Elsewhere, PCIe Gen 6-based SSDs deliver up to twice the storage performance, while Apple’s N1 chip adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. USB-C genlock, support for up to eight displays, and Thunderbolt 5 clustering for distributed AI workloads are also new.
The new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra was announced on August 25, 2026, but it won’t start shipping until September 22. Even then, not every configuration will be available: Apple says Mac Studio models configured with 512GB of unified memory won’t arrive until “late October.”
You can pre-order the new Mac Studio now, though, and if you want one we’d recommend ordering early. Ongoing chip and component shortages have constrained Mac availability, so the most popular configurations could quickly become difficult to find.
In June 2026, Apple raised the starting price of the Mac Studio by $500, from $1,999 to $2,499. The M3 Ultra model saw an even steeper increase, rising $1,300 from its $3,999 launch price to $5,299. The hikes were part of broader increases across the Mac lineup, which Apple attributed to sharply higher component costs, particularly RAM.
The new M5 Max Mac Studio remains at the June price of $2,499, but the M5 Ultra model has risen by another $200 to $5,499. That makes it $1,500 more expensive than the previous-generation Ultra model was when it launched in March 2025.
Here’s a breakdown of the key price changes for the Mac Studio:
When it comes to high prices, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio is filling the gap left by the the removal of the Mac Pro from the line up back in March 2026.
Mac Studio moves to M5 Max and M5 Ultra, with up to a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 512GB unified memory and 1.2TB/s memory bandwidth. Storage now uses PCIe Gen 6 for twice the performance, while connectivity adds Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and USB-C genlock.
The Mac Studio comes with either Apple’s Max or Ultra chips. The Max chip is aimed at demanding professional and creative workflows and supports large amounts of unified memory and high memory bandwidth. The Max chip is also available as an option for the MacBook Pro.
The Ultra chip combines two Max chips on one large chip using Apple’s UltraFusion architecture, so they offer double the CPU and GPU resources, and even higher memory capacity and bandwidth. It’s suited to complex 3D rendering, large AI models and scientific computing.
