According to Bloomberg, although Apple has recently raised the prices of many Mac products, the company still plans to release a new generation of Mac Studio desktops as early as this year and introduce the new M5 Ultra chip for the first time as the final product of the M5 series. It will then gradually transition to new generation chip platforms such as M6, M7, M7 Pro and M7 Max.
According to reports, the M5 Ultra will integrate about 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU, and its overall specifications are not very different from the existing M3 Ultra - the latter offers up to 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU configurations. However, Apple has verified support for up to 768GB of unified memory for the M5 Ultra in internal testing. However, due to the current tight supply of memory chips and soaring prices, there are still variables as to whether this highest memory option will eventually be available in the marketed models.
The M3 Ultra version of Mac Studio currently on sale previously had an option of up to 512GB of memory, but this option was removed from the configuration page in March this year. Currently, users can only purchase versions with up to 96GB of memory. The report pointed out that this is part of Apple's larger strategy of "temporarily cutting off" some high-end models in its high-end Mac product line. Before the pressure on memory chip supply and cost eases, Apple tends to compress high-end options to control the overall cost structure.
The update for the new Mac Studio was originally planned to launch earlier in 2026, but Apple has delayed this refresh cycle due to memory chip supply issues and rising costs. Bloomberg said in April this year that the new model could be released around October 2026, but it is unclear whether Apple can maintain this time window - especially since the official shipment estimate of the current M3 Ultra Mac Studio has been extended to October this year.
If Apple finally launches a new Mac Studio equipped with M5 Ultra and supports up to 768GB of unified memory, the price of the entire machine is expected to reach an extremely high level. The report mentioned that in the latest round of price increases, the starting price of the Mac Studio with 96GB of memory has been raised from US$3,999 to US$5,299, an increase of up to US$1,300. Considering the surge in memory prices and the possibility of increasing the maximum memory capacity to 8 times the original, the price of the new generation of top-end models is considered to be very likely to exceed the US$10,000 mark.