A review published October 1, 2026, reports that a 256 GB Mac Studio with M5 Ultra completed an offline agent task using a 122-billion-parameter Qwen 3.5 model in under two minutes. The same review reports results for a file-summary task and Cyberpunk 2077; a separate video review covers Geekbench 7 and professional video exports.
For U.S. buyers weighing the Mac Studio M5 Ultra for local AI, gaming, or video work, the reported results are tied to particular tasks and configurations. Apple lists an M5 Ultra configuration at $5,499, while a higher-core, higher-memory configuration costs $12,299.
A large Qwen model ran locally
The reported under-two-minute result came from a 256 GB review unit running Qwen 3.5 with 122 billion parameters offline. The task was an agent workflow; the review describes the outcome as a completed task, not a general measure of model quality.
The same review also reports a task using a smaller model to summarize a dozen local files. Qwen 3.5 with 9 billion parameters took two minutes on the M5 Ultra system.
The file-summary task took almost 10 minutes on an M5 Max MacBook Pro
For that same file-summary task, the review reports a time of almost 10 minutes on an M5 Max MacBook Pro, compared with two minutes on the M5 Ultra. The comparison concerns that task and those reported systems.
Cyberpunk 2077 at two resolutions
The review reports Cyberpunk 2077 running at 160 fps at 2560 × 1400 with the Ultra preset. At native 4K with the same preset, it reports 53 fps.
Local video generation and sustained load
In a separate local-AI workload, the review reports that generating a 15-second video with MiniMax H3 in Draw Things took more than 11 minutes. It also describes the Mac Studio becoming hot and its fans clearly audible under demanding AI workloads.
A separate video review presents Geekbench 7 results and Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro export demonstrations. It reports a score of 3,675 in Geekbench 7 single-core and 51,899 in multi-core, plus a GPU score of 360,774. Its export timings were 1 minute 33 seconds for a 13-minute Adobe Premiere Pro project, 5 minutes 17 seconds for a 45-minute project with 15 audio and video layers, and 29 seconds for a 15-minute Final Cut Pro 12.3 project.
Apple’s M5 Ultra specifications and U.S. prices
Apple specifies up to 36 CPU cores, up to 80 GPU cores, up to 512 GB of unified memory, and 1.2 TB/s of memory bandwidth for M5 Ultra. The 256 GB system used in the Qwen review was below Apple’s announced memory maximum.
Apple’s U.S. Store lists an M5 Ultra configuration with a 30-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 96 GB of memory, and 1 TB of storage for $5,499. A configuration with a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 256 GB of memory, and 4 TB of storage is listed at $12,299.
Apple announced the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra on August 25, 2026, and set September 22 as its availability date. In that announcement, Apple said the 512 GB unified-memory configuration was planned for late October 2026.
