In a product review published by PetaPixel, a reviewer argues that Apple’s discontinued Mac Pro lives on through the newly released M5 Ultra Mac Studio. Following Apple’s decision to discontinue the Mac Pro housing in March, Shah examines the $12,300 M5 Ultra Mac Studio configuration to demonstrate how the Ultra-series desktop delivers generational performance leaps while avoiding the extreme pricing of previous top-end Mac Pro models.
M5 Ultra Mac Studio Pricing and Specifications
The reviewed M5 Ultra Mac Studio unit costs $12,300, positioning it close to the 2023 Mac Pro price of $11,800 and the 2013 cylindrical Mac Pro price of $10,000, while standing far below the 2019 Mac Pro’s $52,600 price tag. This highest-specification machine features an M5 Ultra chip equipped with a 36-core CPU containing 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, an 80-core GPU, 256GB of memory, and 4TB of internal SSD storage. Apple also offers a 16TB internal storage upgrade for an additional $6,000, while a 512GB internal memory option is slated for release at a later date.
M5 Ultra Mac Studio Adds Thunderbolt 5 and Wi-Fi 7
Retaining the compact aluminum chassis dimensions of 3.7 inches tall, 7.7 inches wide, and 7.7 inches deep with a weight of roughly eight pounds, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio introduces key hardware connectivity updates. The rear panel houses four Thunderbolt 5 ports, a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the front panel includes an SD card reader and two additional Thunderbolt 5 ports that support USB-C at 80 Gb/s speeds. The machine also adds support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and up to eight 5K displays simultaneously, including four Studio Display XDR monitors running at 5K resolution and 120Hz.
Benchmark Results in Lightroom Premiere and Resolve
Testing conducted with Puget Systems benchmarking tools reveals substantial performance gains driven by the 80-core GPU. In Adobe Lightroom Classic benchmarks processing 250 RAW image files from high-resolution cameras like the Sony a1 II, the M5 Ultra runs nearly twice as fast as the M2 Ultra and 22 percent faster than the M3 Ultra. In Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve testing, the system outpaces prior generation hardware by wide margins, delivering double the performance of the M2 Ultra in Premiere Pro and doubling the results of the previous top-tier M3 Ultra in DaVinci Resolve.
Performance Limitations in Adobe Photoshop
While GPU-accelerated applications show massive performance improvements, CPU-dependent software reveals much smaller gains. In Adobe Photoshop benchmarks, which rely heavily on the CPU rather than the GPU, the M5 Ultra performs only slightly better than the M5 Max chip. Users working primarily within Photoshop or other CPU-bound tasks will see minimal performance differences when comparing the M5 Ultra against the M5 Max or recent baseline configurations.
How Much Does the M5 Ultra Mac Studio Cost?
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How much does the reviewed M5 Ultra Mac Studio cost?
The reviewed configuration is priced at $12,300, which includes 256GB of memory and 4TB of internal SSD storage. -
What are the core specifications of the M5 Ultra chip tested?
The tested M5 Ultra chip features a 36-core CPU comprised of 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, paired with an 80-core GPU. -
How many external displays can the M5 Ultra Mac Studio drive?
The machine supports up to eight 5K displays, including four Apple Studio Display XDR monitors running at 5K resolution and 120Hz.
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