Early reviews of Apple’s new Mac Studio point to a major improvement that is easy to overlook beside the M5 Ultra chip: much faster SSD performance. Testing of an M5 Max configuration found read speeds roughly 2.6 times higher and write speeds about 2.1 times higher than those of the previous-generation Mac Studio with an M4 Max processor.

Macworld reviewer Roman Loyola described storage performance as the defining feature of the new computer after testing a model with an 18-core M5 Max chip, 128GB of memory and a 4TB SSD. The results came from Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test utility and exceeded Apple’s advertised claim of up to twice the previous storage speed.

Mac Studio SSD speeds deliver the biggest gain

The benchmark results suggest that storage could be the new Mac Studio’s most noticeable upgrade for workflows involving large files. Faster reads and writes can help when moving media projects, loading data sets or working with other storage-heavy applications, although actual performance will depend on the task and configuration.

Apple’s stated “up to” figures do not guarantee the same results for every model. Loyola’s testing used a specific M5 Max system with a 4TB SSD, so performance may vary across different chip, memory and storage options. Even with that qualification, the results indicate a substantial step forward over the M4 Max generation.

How much faster is the M5 Ultra?

The M5 Ultra remains Apple’s fastest chip, but early Geekbench 7 results indicate a smaller generational gain than the storage benchmarks show. Initial testing suggests up to about 30% higher single-core CPU performance and up to around 35% higher multi-core performance compared with the M3 Ultra.

Those figures broadly match Apple’s own claims. The company says the M5 Ultra offers up to 1.25 times faster single-threaded performance and up to 1.3 times faster multi-threaded performance than the M3 Ultra. The results available so far appear to meet or exceed those advertised comparisons.

The performance comes at a significant price. In the United States, the Mac Studio with a 36-core M5 Ultra starts at $6,799, placing it firmly in the professional workstation market.

Reviewers praise the Mac Studio’s professional performance

Other early assessments have also focused on the computer’s high-end capabilities. The Verge’s Antonio G. Di Benedetto described the M5 Ultra model’s performance as “outrageous,” while PCMag’s Brian Westover characterised it as a powerful option for local AI inference.

The new Mac Studio and the Mac mini, which is offered with M6 and M5 Pro chip options, became available for preorder on August 25. Apple’s new Mac Studio is scheduled to launch on September 22.