Apple’s biggest Mac Studio memory option has a price tag that deserves its own security detail: an extra $15,500 to move from 96GB to 512GB on the top M5 Ultra. That makes the cheapest eligible configuration $22,299, according to MacRumors and 9to5Mac’s October 28 reports.⁠1⁠2

Add 16TB of storage and the total reaches $29,799. That is a fully configured workstation, not the starting price of a Mac Studio. Apple’s current specifications still list a 36GB M5 Max and a 96GB M5 Ultra as the respective starting memory configurations.⁠1⁠3

The sticker shock has travelled beyond the usual Apple comment-section fistfight. In an October 29 report, Benzinga described Elon Musk responding to a screenshot of the maximum configuration by comparing its price with a Tesla. His comment came earlier that day, rather than alongside a new announcement.⁠4

Apple’s pitch is substantial local AI workloads, with up to 512GB of unified memory. Macworld priced two M5 Ultra Mac Studios with 256GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD each at $21,598 combined, or $10,799 each.⁠6 These are RAM configurations of the same desktop model. The pair costs $701 less than one 512GB configuration, but its memory sits in two separate computers. Apple’s supported clustering needs distributed software; two 256GB systems do not automatically behave like one 512GB memory pool.⁠3⁠5

Bloomboff’s take

There is a real specialist use case here. There is also a very expensive lesson: buy the workload you actually have. Otherwise, your AI research project is finding increasingly elaborate ways to justify a fucking receipt.

Correction, 30 October 2026: An earlier key point and social copy called the 256GB configurations “smaller”. They are the same M5 Ultra Mac Studio model with less RAM per computer.