Apple's top-tier Mac, the Mac Studio, has been given a big AI bump with the M5 Ultra. Here's how it compares against the M3 Ultra model it replaces. The new Mac Studio arrived on Tuesday, with the all-new M5 Ultra now the top-of-the-range chip for tough productivity workloads. Apple is positioning it squarely as a desktop for doing a lot of AI-related processing, including running models locally.

The design stays faithful to the outgoing model, so the story lives inside the chip. This time, the headline is artificial intelligence rather than raw core counts. The compact aluminum block measures 7.7 inches square and 3.7 inches tall, unchanged from the M3 Ultra model. Weight holds steady at 8 pounds.

Specifications show a launch starting price of $5,499 for the M5 Ultra versus $3,999 for the M3 Ultra. The M5 Ultra offers up to a 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, while the M3 Ultra has up to a 32-core CPU. Memory bandwidth rises to 1.2TB/s from 819GB/s. Networking upgrades include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

Ports remain identical with six Thunderbolt 5, HDMI, and 10Gb Ethernet. The M5 Ultra includes a 32-core Neural Engine and GPU Neural Accelerators, emphasizing AI capabilities over the M3 Ultra's hardware ray tracing.