Apple's M5 Ultra chip brings quad-die design and faster performance
Apple's M5 Ultra uses a new quad-die architecture, fusing two M5 Max chips with six times the connection density of the M3 Ultra. It offers up to 36 CPU cores, a 25% faster single-threaded performance, and a 50% boost in memory bandwidth to 1.2TB/s. The chip supports up to 512GB of unified memory, though that configuration is expected to cost around $15,000.
The M5 Ultra marks a structural departure for Apple's flagship silicon, moving from the previous two-die fusion to a quad-die layout that pairs two dual-die M5 Max chips. Apple reports six times the connection density between dies and a 4.4TB/s interconnection speed, up from 2.5TB/s on the M3 Ultra. The top configuration offers 36 CPU cores split between 12 super cores and 24 performance cores, with no efficiency cores listed.
Memory bandwidth jumps 50 percent to 1.2TB/s, and the chip supports up to 512GB of unified memory, though that October configuration is projected to cost roughly $15,000. GPU cores remain at 80, but each now includes a Neural Accelerator, boosting AI compute up to 4.5 times over the M3 Ultra. The updated Media Engine handles 33 simultaneous streams of 8K ProRes video, and PCIe Gen 6 SSD support arrives with theoretical speeds far exceeding current storage hardware.
This chip could significantly reshape who can run large AI models locally, potentially reducing reliance on cloud services for researchers and developers. The $15,000 top-tier configuration may limit access to well-funded institutions and studios, though lower configurations could still offer meaningful upgrades for creative professionals. Faster on-device processing may also raise expectations around data privacy, as more sensitive workloads stay off remote servers. However, the practical impact depends on software adoption and whether developers optimize for the new architecture.