Besides the new Mac Mini powered by the new M6 chip, Apple has also introduced its updated Mac Studio for 2026. It is now powered by the M5 Max and M5 Ultra, which Apple describes as their most powerful chip yet.
While the Mac Studio retains the same compact desktop design, the biggest upgrades are on the inside. Besides faster CPU and GPU performance, Apple is putting greater emphasis on running demanding AI workloads locally, with the M5 Ultra supporting up to 512GB of unified memory.
The new Mac Studio also gets faster storage, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, while retaining Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.
Mac Studio 2026 Malaysia Pricing and Availability
The new Mac Studio will be available for pre-order in Malaysia starting Thursday, 27 August 2026 at 9am via Apple’s Online Store. It will be available starting 22 September 2026.
For Malaysia, the Mac Studio with M5 Max starts at RM10,999. The base Mac Studio configuration gets an 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD storage.
Meanwhile, the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at RM24,999 which is configured with 30-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 96GB of unified memory and 1TB of SSD storage.
For those who want the ultimate setup, the Mac Studio configured with the range-topping M5 Ultra chip with 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 256GB of unified memory and 16TB of SSD storage for a whopping RM82,599. You can get a brand new Proton S70 with that amount of money.
However, this isn’t the maximum memory configuration available for the new Mac Studio. The M5 Ultra actually supports up to 512GB of unified memory but the option will only be available from late October.
It is worth pointing out that the entry price has gone up quite significantly this time due to the global RAM shortage. Last year’s Mac Studio with M4 Max was launched in Malaysia from RM8,999 with 36GB of unified memory and 512GB of storage. The new M5 Max version starts RM2,000 higher at RM10,999.
Of course, the monitor, keyboard and mouse are sold separately. The 27-inch 5K Apple Studio Display is priced from RM6,499 while the 27-inch 5K Apple Studio Display XDR is priced from RM13,499.
What’s new with Mac Studio 2026?
The new Mac Studio retains the familiar compact aluminium enclosure, so this is essentially a performance update.
For the M5 Max, the base model gets an 18-core CPU and 32-core GPU, compared to the 14-core CPU and 32-core GPU on the previous base M4 Max Mac Studio.
The M5 Max can be configured with up to a 40-core GPU and 128GB of unified memory. Apple says it offers up to 614GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, up from up to 546GB/s on the M4 Max.
One of the major changes with the M5 generation is the addition of a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core, which is designed to accelerate AI workloads. Apple says the M5 Max delivers up to 3.9 times faster LLM prompt processing in LM Studio and up to three times faster Magic Mask performance in DaVinci Resolve Studio compared to the M4 Max.
For graphics, Apple says the M5 Max’s GPU is up to 50% faster than the previous generation and it also gets third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing.
M5 Ultra supports up to 512GB unified memory
For those who need even more performance, there’s the new M5 Ultra.
Apple says the M5 Ultra uses its next-generation UltraFusion technology and features Apple’s Silicon first quad-die architecture for an M-series system-on-chip. It can be configured with up to a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU, compared to the previous M3 Ultra’s maximum 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU.
The M5 Ultra also gets Neural Accelerators in its GPU for the first time. Apple claims up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute performance and up to 1.8 times faster graphics performance compared to the M3 Ultra. CPU multithreaded performance is claimed to be up to 1.3 times faster.
Perhaps the biggest upgrade is memory. The previous M3 Ultra supported up to 256GB of unified memory, while the new M5 Ultra doubles that to a massive 512GB for the 80-core GPU option.
Memory bandwidth has also increased from 819GB/s on the M3 Ultra to 1.2TB/s on the M5 Ultra. Apple says the additional memory and bandwidth allow the Mac Studio to run large AI models entirely on-device.
The M5 Ultra’s Media Engine can simultaneously play up to 33 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30fps.
Faster SSD, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6
Beyond the new chips, Apple says the 2026 Mac Studio gets a next-generation SSD architecture that delivers up to twice the storage performance of its predecessor.
Wireless connectivity has also been upgraded with Apple’s N1 chip, which enables support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 to the Mac Studio for the first time. The previous model supported Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The Mac Studio also supports Thunderbolt 5 with bandwidth of up to 120Gbps. You get four ports on the M5 Max and up to a total of six ports on the M5 Ultra version.
The M5 Max setup has support for up to five 4K displays, four 6K displays or two 8K displays. Meanwhile, the M5 Ultra option supports up to eight 4K displays, eight 6K displays or four 8K displays.
Apple has also added genlock support over USB-C, which allows precise synchronisation between displays and professional camera capture devices like the iPhone 17 Pro.