$10.8K M5 Ultra Mac Studio benchmark shows a 6x increase in multi-core compute since M1 - AppleInsider

Tue Sep 15 2026, 05:49 PM EDT · 1 minute read

Mac Studio with M5 Ultra is Apple's most powerful Mac yet

Apple Silicon was a gamble, and in spite of repeated reports of brain drains and executive exodus, the M5 Ultra is Apple's most powerful chipset by a long shot.

Earlier Tuesday, the M6 benchmarks showed up on Geekbench with impressive results. It is expected to be the only chipset in that generation, so the M5 Ultra is the high-end pros will have to work with for the time being.

Another Geekbench result showed up, this time for the M5 Ultra. The 36-core CPU Mac Studio with 256GB of RAM scored 3,774 in single-core and 52,516 in multi-core.

Geekbench is a useful reference tool for generalized performance gains, not one that determines real-world use. However, the numbers don't lie, and Apple's M5 Ultra is an incredible chipset.

For comparison, the M6 scored 4,071 in single-core and 22,783 in multi-core. That single-core score makes since given it is the new 2nm package with more powerful cores.

The multi-core results show the 36-core M5 Ultra scores more than double the 12-core M6.

M5 Ultra 3,774 single-core and 52,516 multi-core in Geekbench

Compare the M5 Ultra to the original M1 chip and you can see just how far Apple Silicon has come in six years. The M1 in a MacBook Air got a single-core score of 2,150 and a multi-core score of 8,434.

That means M5 Ultra is about 6x more performant in multi-core processes versus M1.

Moore's Law is well and completely dead, but that hasn't stopped Apple from finding notable performance gains with each chip generation. The move to Apple Silicon was met with some concern, but it has proven to be an incredible success for the company.

Meanwhile, in spite of the advances over time, concerns continue to creep up over Apple's ability to maintain that success. Reports keep coming out about so-called "brain drain" and the attempted exit of chip mastermind Johny Srouji.

Instead, Apple continues to develop industry-leading processors that sip on power. The M5 Ultra Mac Studio starts at $5,499, while the configuration in this benchmark is $10,799.

Shipments are highly constrained, especially for the higher-end models. Customers can expect to get an M5 Ultra Mac Studio between November 9 and sometime in January, depending on configuration options.

Wesley was in the US Navy for ten years, serving as a carrier-based nuclear trained electrician, then jumped careers in 2019. Today, he is Assistant Editor, Podcast Cohost, SEO Specialist, and Social Media Manager for...

Thanks for sharing that performance preview! But the more interesting comparison for the M5 Ultra is against the original M1 Ultra Mac Studio.

Taking a quick look at Geekbench 7 charts for M1 Ultra, it looks like the top scores posted are around 2200 for single-core and 24000 in multi-core, like this example.

So the M5 Ultra seems to be roughly doubling the scores of the original M1 Ultra, four years later. Not bad!

Wondering how much the 512 is going to run.

It's so tempting to finally upgrade my 2020 iMac to a top-grade Mac Studio. My requirements require a lot of RAM and for now, I can't justify the nosebleed RAM/SSD prices right now. Waiting for the AI bubble to burst to get the component prices back down to earth.

For the time being, I'll know that by then it'll whatever M-based system is out it will be an even more amazing system that what it is now.

https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/comment/3509337#Comment_3509337

The bubble bursting? Could be any time between tomorrow and 2030.

https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/comment/3509331#Comment_3509331

The top configuration for 256 is ~$18k, right? I would bet 512 would double that (maybe make that option an even $20k).