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When you’re someone who is serious about their profession and takes productivity to the next level, investing in a Mac is an equally serious financial decision. This especially true when we’re talking about the Mac Studio.
One rarely hears about them, much less talks about getting one. This is because very few people in our circles would fit the profile of someone who is in serious need of a Mac Studio. It’s not just something that is nice to have. It’s something one would actually need because their work or business depends on it.
Our latest setup for work (and experiments) is the new Apple Mac Studio M5 Ultra, and we’re taking on the challenge to maximize this performance beast to its limits.
Design and Build
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra sticks to Apple’s familiar formula. You get a compact silver aluminum enclosure with rounded corners, a flat top, and an Apple logo at the center. There’s no major exterior redesign here (largely unchanged from the previous generation) as it retains the same understated, boxy appearance as its predecessor.
At roughly 19.7 × 19.7 × 9.5cm, it takes up relatively little desk space, especially compared to a conventional workstation tower. The styling is distinctly Apple — clean, minimalist, and designed to blend into a workspace rather than draw attention to itself. Having used the Mac Mini M6 alongside the Mac Studio, I’d say the total footprint would be somewhere in the 3x area and 4x in volume.
The aluminum construction gives it a premium, substantial character, while the M5 Ultra model’s approximately 3.6kg weight makes it heavier than its small footprint might suggest. That extra heft isn’t simply for show. The Ultra uses a heavier copper-based cooling assembly to handle its more powerful chip. Externally, though, there’s little to distinguish it from the Max variant, so you’re getting the same sterilized appearance rather than a more aggressive enclosure to indicate the additional performance inside.
Port placement remains one of the design’s more practical features. Two Thunderbolt 5 ports and a UHS-II SDXC card reader sit up front, putting frequently used connections within easy reach, a welcome arrangement for importing footage or connecting external storage like a portable drive or an SD card from your camera.
Around the back are four more Thunderbolt 5 ports, two USB-A ports, 10Gb Ethernet, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the power button. This layout lets you keep permanent peripherals connected at the rear while leaving the front accessible for everyday use.
The rear-mounted power button is less convenient if you position the machine somewhere difficult to reach, but the overall design prioritizes a tidy desk without sacrificing connectivity.
I noticed the same approach in our review of the Mac Mini M6 and simply attributed it to potential accidental press of the button and the fact that very few people even turn their unit off and often keep them in sleep mode.
Ports and Connectivity
Despite its relatively small size, the Mac Studio has quite the plethora of ports and connectivity options. It has 12 ports and slots in total (9 on the back and 3 on the front).
Back (9)
* 4 x Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C), up to 120Gb/s, with DisplayPort 2.1 support
* 2 x USB-A, up to 5Gb/s
* 1 x HDMI 2.1
* 1 x 10Gb Ethernet, which also runs at 1, 2.5 and 5Gb
* 1 x 3.5mm headphone jack that works with high-impedance headphones
Front (3)
* 2 x Thunderbolt 5, up to 120Gb/s
* 1 x SDXC card slot (UHS-II)
That’s 6 Thunderbolt 5 ports in total.
Apple lists two display setups for the M5 Ultra, covering five resolution and refresh-rate options, connected through any mix of Thunderbolt and HDMI ports.
* Up to eight (8) displays
6K at 60Hz
4K at up to 165Hz
* Up to four (4) displays
8K at 60Hz
5K at 120Hz
4K at 240Hz
One Thunderbolt port can run up to four displays. The Thunderbolt 5 ports run at full DisplayPort 2.1 speeds with variable refresh rate (VRR), HDR and multichannel audio are all supported.
Now, compare this to the other Mac Mini M6 we reviewed along with the Mac Studio (read here). That one only supports up to 3 external displays (maximum). This alone tells you how much different the Mac Studio compared to the Mac Mini as it draws a very visible line between regular case use and high-level productivity needs.
As for wireless connectivity, the Mac Studio supports WiFi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread networking, and 10Gb Ethernet as standard. You can best maximize this gigabit connectivity if you plug the device into your local wired network rather than
Performance and Benchmarks
For the longest time, we’ve been using the entry-level Macs for most of our productivity work. These would include the usual MacBook Air, the base Mac Mini (M1) and a slightly more capable MacBook Pro M5.
Mac Mini M6 on top of Mac Studio M5 Ultra for reference.
There was a time when we were switching between a MacBook Air to a desktop-class Windows PC system was because were were editing 4K videos, color grading them and exporting at 4K for YouTube. The advantage then was we were using Adobe Premiere and an NVidia GPU that optimizes the use of CUDA cores to accelerate video editing, real-time playback and export times. This could spell a world of difference in export times.
Now, we’ve moved to either Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve and using Macs have either closed that gap and often surpass it in some areas. The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra is considered the ultimate tool in productivity, whether it’s for heavy video post-production, running local Large Language Models or maximizing that 80-core GPU rendering.
Apple says the M5 Ultra can color-grade uncompressed 8K in real time. The M5 Ultra’s can also pull off multi-camera 8K and can play up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 at once. We’ll try to demonstrate some scenarios in this review to test those claims.
GeekBench 7:
CPU Single-Core Score: 3,759
CPU Multi-Core Score: 52,387
GPU OpenCL Score: 216,856
GPU Metal Score: 352,070
Synthetic benchmarks showed good results, starting with GeekBench 7 placing the M5 Ultra chip at 3,759 points for Single-Core but then shoots up to 52,387 points for the Multi-Core score.
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra handles local large language models very well, particularly when you need enough memory to run larger models rather than simply chase the fastest response from a small one.
In our synthetic benchmarks, results range from 44 to 96 tokens per second with Gemma 4 12B and Gemma 4 31B models, which is fast enough for a responsive, continuously streaming answer. Best decode speed tops at 230 tokens/s with Phi-4 Mini 3.8B (all based on NovaBench 6).
I am sure larger models can run too, but their performance varies substantially with model architecture, compression, and context length.
Aside from AI, post-processing multi-camera 8K footage with heavy visual effects and color grading will immensely benefit from this kind of setup. We’ll be doing some heavy workloads to simulate this and then compare it with our other unit (Mac Mini M6) to see the performance difference and the actual time saved for various tasks or heavy workloads, but that’s for another article altogether.
Mind you — the M5 Ultra’s 80-core GPU and 256GB of unified memory are not primarily about making ordinary editing feel faster. They are about handling larger models, heavier effects, and more demanding production workloads locally and reducing the time you spend waiting for them. So for regular folks thinking this could get their 4K videos uploaded on YouTube faster, this machine isn’t for that. It’s simply overkill, IMO.
Thermals, Noise and Power Draw
At idle, the Mac Studio will draw about 9 watts of power, but this could easily jump to 385 watts under heavy load. Nevertheless, that 9W of idle power is commendable and translates to about less than Php100 of additional cost on your Meralco bill if you keep it running 24/7 for a month in idle.
Speaking of thermals, the size of the Mac Studio (compared to the Mini) is an indication that the internals need room and space for heat to ventilate and/or dissipate. There’s a massive copper heatsink in there to help reduce normal operating temperatures.
In the short time I’ve used it, not once have I heard any noticeable noise or fan speeding up. Perhaps, that only means that I haven’t really cranked up the workload to the level that the fans would do so. I will still reserve judgement on that matter until I can dig my hands deep into this unit.
Even the temperature monitor we gathered during the benchmark sessions showed a very cool chipset (max 40 degrees). I’ll keep some more space here once we’re done with those heavy workloads we’re planning on so stay tuned for that.
Software and AI Features
Right out of the box, the Mac Studio updated its operating system to macOS 17.0.1 (around 2.21GB of download during the setup process). Codenamed Golden Gate, macOS 17 brings a more capable Siri alongside Apple Intelligence features integrated into everyday apps.
The experience remains familiar to existing Mac users, but with more ways to interact with the system using natural-language requests. Siri is now integrated into Spotlight, letting you type questions or requests directly into the search interface, while its expanded capabilities include understanding personal context and what’s on your screen.
Apple Intelligence also extends beyond the assistant. Visual Intelligence lets you select a portion of your screen such as an image or part of a PDF and ask questions about it. Other features include AI-assisted photo editing, image generation through Image Playground, and tools integrated into Safari.
Meanwhile, Shortcuts gains natural-language workflow creation, allowing you to describe what you want to accomplish and connect actions across multiple apps. These additions focus on making everyday tasks more convenient rather than fundamentally changing how you use the Mac.
For more demanding AI workloads, the M5 Ultra’s main attraction is its ability to run compatible models locally. Its 32-core Neural Engine, GPU acceleration, and configurations with up to 512GB of unified memory provide the hardware foundation for running large language models and image-generation tools on the machine itself.
Apple highlights models such as Gemma, Kimi, and Mistral, along with Stable Diffusion and FLUX for image generation.
Pricing and Availability
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra is the most powerful variant in this category (the other is the M5 Max). There are also two variants of the M5 Ultra. The base variant has a 30-core CPu and 36-core GPU while the other one (this unit) has a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU. You start with 96GB of unified memory, then it goes to 256GB and up maximum of 512GB (coming end of October). Storage options include 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB and 16TB.
As you can see, there are some many combinations to have here but you’ll starting with about Php 351,990 for the M5 Ultra 30-Core CPU, 96GB RAM 1TB storage. Our custom configuration (M5 Ultra 36-core CPU + 80-core GPU, 256GB RAM and 4TB of storage amounts to Php 749,790. Maxxing out everything and you’ll end up Php 1,100,790 for the 16TB storage. We’re not yet counting the 512GB RAM model that yet to come out end of the month.
Conclusion
The Mac Studio M5 Ultra is not to be trifled with. It is a serious workhorse machine that deserves some critical financial planning if you are contemplating on investing in one. Our custom configuration of the Mac Studio M5 Ultra (36-core CPU, 80-core GPU), 256GB RAM, 4TB storage adds to about Php 749,790 and that does not even include the Studio Display.
Assembling this kind of setup must mean you are in some serious business to justify it. Your work or project must require an enormous memory pool or processing time that has a direct business cost; that’s along the lines of large local AI models, complex 3D/VFX work, high-end video finishing (visual effects or color grading).
However, once you’ve used it, it’s like weilding a Jedi lightsaber. One that can slice through anything like a hot knife through butter. You can feel the raw power and you know you can do just about anything with it and with haste. Now you know why very few people talk about it.
What we liked about it:
* Ultra-level performance
* Generous unified memory allocation
* Relatively small footprint
* Simple and familiar design
* Specific heavy-duty work (e.g. local LLMs)
What we did not like:
* A serious investment, like buying a car
Apple Mac Studio M5 Ultra specs:
Apple M5 Ultra chip
36-core CPU 4.6GHz (12 super cores and 24 performance cores)
80-core GPU
32-core Neural Engine
256GB unified memory (96GB, 512GB soon)
4TB internal storage (1TB, 2TB, 8TB, 16TB options)
WiFi 7 / 802.11be
Bluetooth 6
Apple N1 wireless chip
Front:
2 x Thunderbolt 5, USB-C connector
1 x SDXC card slot, UHS-II
Back:
4 x Thunderbolt 5, USB-C connector
2 x USB-A 3.0 ports
1 x HDMI 2.1
1 x 3.5mm headphone jack
10Gb Ethernet, RJ-45
macOS 17.0.1 Golden Gate
Silver color
19.7 x 19.7 x 9.5cm (dimensions)
3.6 kg (weight)
What are the physical dimensions of the Mac Studio M5 Ultra?
The Mac Studio measures 19.7 × 19.7 × 9.5cm, occupying relatively little desk space compared to a conventional workstation tower.
How does the Mac Studio M5 Ultra compare to the Mac Mini M6 in terms of size?
The total footprint of the Mac Studio is approximately three times the area and four times the volume of the Mac Mini M6.
Why do very few people typically own a Mac Studio?
Very few people fit the profile of someone who is in serious need of a Mac Studio because their work or business depends on it.
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