Apple Mac Studio M5 Max/M3 Ultra

If I were a content creator, I'd stick to the Mac Studio M5 Max model with the 18-core CPU and 40-core GPU configuration with 48GB of unified memory for $3,099 or 64GB for $3,499. For AI developers, the same model with 128GB of RAM may do the job if $5,099 fits your budget. If every second of compute time counts more than the $10K-plus price, though, you can't do better than one (or more) M5 Ultra models loaded up with RAM.

Apple pitches this as an AI workhorse — that’s really why the configurations for 256GB and 512GB exist — and like most of the high-powered systems these days intended for on-device processing, that means things such as agentic development, complex video generation, in-depth research, moderate-level machine learning and more.

The Mac Studio with M5 Max is an outstanding desktop computer with extreme capabilities.

The Mac Studio’s SSD speed improvement is so dramatic that even if you bought an M4 Max or M3 Ultra Mac Studio–the previous models–you should consider upgrading to the M5 Max Mac Studio. Plus, the external display support is expanded. Sure it’s expensive, but if you want the best Mac ever made, accept no substitute.

The Apple Mac Studio is undeniably the fastest Apple computer ever, capable of making short work of even the most demanding tasks while running cool and quiet. It retains the same elegant, compact design as before and packs a slew of Thunderbolt 5 ports. However, as a machine built for professional workloads, it can be a steep investment.

The remarkably quiet and efficient M5 Max Mac Studio is a superb compact workstation, but the 128GB configuration makes its local AI capabilities the real story. It is dramatically faster than the M6 Mac mini in GPU-heavy and local LLM workloads, runs a 65GB GPT-OSS 120B model comfortably, and handles a fully offline agentic workflow.

The Mac Studio’s SSD speed improvement is so dramatic that even if you bought an M4 Max or M3 Ultra Mac Studio–the previous models–you should consider upgrading to the M5 Max Mac Studio. Plus, the external display support is expanded. Sure it’s expensive, but if you want the best Mac ever made, accept no substitute.