Apple now sells the 512GB Mac Studio with M5 Ultra, and the configuration costs $22,299. Apple promised the memory option for late October when it announced the Mac Studio on August 25, and it restores the 512GB ceiling that Apple pulled from the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra in March. The $22,299 build pairs 512GB of unified memory with the 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU version of the M5 Ultra and 1TB of storage. The Mac Studio with M5 Ultra starts at $5,499 with 96GB of memory, which makes the 512GB build about four times the entry price. 
The 512GB Mac Studio needs the 80-core GPU chip
Both the 256GB and 512GB options require the 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU version of the M5 Ultra, so 512GB cannot be paired with the base 30-core CPU and 64-core GPU. That chip adds $1,300, which puts a 96GB machine at $6,799 before any memory upgrade. Over the 96GB base, the 256GB option adds $4,000 and the 512GB option adds $15,500, so stepping from 256GB to 512GB costs $11,500. Storage costs extra, with 2TB adding $500 and 16TB adding $7,500 on the 512GB build. That puts a 512GB machine with 16TB at $29,799. The Mac Studio with M5 Max tops out at 128GB, which makes 512GB exclusive to the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra. Apple opened pre-orders for the Mac Studio on August 25 in 30 countries and regions, including the U.S., and the first machines arrived September 22. The Apple Upgrade lease, which is available only in the U.S., costs $498.50 a month for 36 months on the $22,299 build before taxes.
Memory costs nearly four times what it did in 2025
When the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra launched in March 2025, the 512GB option added $4,000 to the 96GB configuration with the 32-core CPU and 80-core GPU chip, which put the 512GB build at $9,499 with 1TB of storage. The 512GB Mac Studio with M5 Ultra costs $12,800 more for the same capacity. Apple removed the 512GB option from the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra in March 2026 and the 256GB option in May. That left 96GB as the only choice until the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra arrived, and Apple says the new chip reaches 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, 50 percent higher than before, and up to 4.3 times the peak AI compute of the M3 Ultra.
Muse Spark Open takes two 512GB Mac Studios
Meta released its 816B-parameter Muse Spark Open model on October 15 and says it runs on two Mac Studio systems with M5 Ultra, each giving the GPU up to 512GB. The pair holds the whole model in 1TB of unified memory. Thunderbolt 5 with RDMA lets several Mac Studio systems pool their memory, and a cluster of four reaches up to 3x faster AI inference than one machine in Apple’s July 2026 testing. A pair of 512GB machines with the base 1TB of storage costs $44,598.
