Apple · Local AI machinePending
Apple Mac Studio (M5 Ultra, 512 GB)
Apple machine: Apple M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU), 512 GB memory, 384 GB for the GPU, 1200 GB/s memory speed, about 18.4 tok/s on a 70B model (estimate).
87.7Score
- #1 of 41 ranked
- #1 of 10 Apple machines
Why this score
The score adds up these parts. Each part has a weight. A part counts as the average of its sources, pulled toward 80 when there are few sources.
AI power
50% weightcounts as 93.3Average of 2 sources: 100.0
Experts
30% weightcounts as 82.3Average of 4 sources: 82.9
Users
20% weightcounts as 80.0No sources found yet. No data yet. This part counts as 80.
Good: 4 reviews and buyer ratings.
80 is the field average. A part counts as 80 + (average − 80) × N ÷ (N + 1), where N is its number of sources. One source counts half of the gap from 80. No sources count as 80.
Price
— No price yet. See the listing
Not orderable yet: Apple AT memory selector lists 36/48/64/96/128/256 GB only and states 512 GB for M5 Ultra is available at the end of October. No price shown. Geizhals Austria lists no M5 Ultra 512 GB offer (only M3 Ultra 512 GB entries without offers).
Prices checked 8 Oct 2026.
Specs
- Chip
- Apple M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU)
- CPU
- 36 cores
- Memory
- 512 GB
- GPU memory
- 384 GBmacOS default Metal GPU memory cap of about 75% of unified memory (community-documented in devnote-override-macos-metal-vram-cap and mlx-lm issue 883; Apple publishes no share). 75% x 512 GB = 384 GB. Raising the cap with sysctl iogpu.wired_limit_mb works but is unsupported by Apple, so it is not applied. The 512 GB option needs the 36-core CPU / 80-core GPU chip (Apple spec page).
- Memory speed
- 1200 GB/s
- FP16 TFLOPS
- —
- NPU
- —
- OS
- macOS
- Software
- MLX
- Ethernet
- 10 Gbit/s
- Thunderbolt / USB4
- TB5
- QSFP port
- No
- Idle power
- 9 W
- Load power
- 385 W
- Noise
- —
- Volume
- 3.7 L
- Weight
- 3.6 kg
- SSD
- 1 TB
- Release
- 2026-09
Measured
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B, not stated (MLX)
- 80 tok/s writing · LM Studio (MLX), M5 Ultra 256 GB, 36-core CPU / 80-core GPU
- Qwen3.8 27B (dense), 4-bit MLX
- 48 tok/s writing, 1701 tok/s prompt · oMLX 0.7.0.dev2 (MLX), M5 Ultra 256 GB, 6,091-token prompt
- Flash-Next (MacStories' name; size not stated), oQ4e (oMLX quant)
- 90.7 tok/s writing, 2733 tok/s prompt · oMLX 0.7.0.dev2 (MLX), M5 Ultra 256 GB, 4K context
Notes
Fastest memory (1.2 TB/s) and the only small box here that holds 256 GB, so reviewers saw about 80 tok/s on a 122B-A10B MoE model and 1,700-2,700 tok/s prompt reading; Apple documents a Neural Accelerator in every GPU core. Very expensive (EUR 6.6k-11k+), memory is soldered, and the 512 GB option is not orderable yet.
Apple's spec page lists the 256 GB option next to the 36-core CPU / 80-core GPU chip, but Apple's AT buy page also sells 256 GB with the 64-core GPU (EUR 10,999); the price uses the cheaper one. Apple's power page lists the 36c/80c/512 GB/16 TB configuration (idle 9 W, max 385 W), not the base config. Tom's Hardware and PCMag UK scores were read via the Geizhals review table; the links go to the reviews. Prices are Apple AT list prices: the lower Geizhals offers in each price note were not linked in the research, and Geizhals could not be read again.
More reading:macstories.netbgr.competapixel.commacdailynews.comtechradar.comchannelpartner.deithinkdiff.com