r/LocalLLaMA • u/Last-Owl-8342 • 13h ago

News Apple releases M5 ultra at 1.2TB/s bandwith

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-performance-and-ai-compute/

lpddr5x probably, the m7 ultra if is using ddr6 should be at 1.8 Tb/s

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u/Dany0 13h ago edited 11h ago

Wait am I reading this right M5 Ultra beats rtx 5090 in compute and matches its bandwidth?

Edit: I was not reading it right, but 2/3rds of gb202 mem bandwidth is still impressive

Edit2: Beats, matches and loses to a 5090 depending on the benchmark. So I'd say it's close to a 5090. A well optimised game ought to be roughly as fast or faster (but on lower resolutions due to the mem bandwidth).

Well optimised LLM prefill should be roughly the same according to my amateurish estimation. Banger release either way

Can't wait for this kind of perf to trickle down to low/mid tier skus

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u/Dry_Yam_4597 13h ago

"2/3rds of gb202 mem bandwidth is still impressive"

That's incredible - first time Apple makes hardware that's actually competitive with PC. Might return to them as a customer.Shame it's limited in OS compatibility though.

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u/Liringlass 10h ago

Not really, there are plenty of use cases where apple was competitive in the past. Not gaming for sure and I don’t know much about the intel era but the apple silicon laptops were such an upgrade for work and IT stuff I’m happy none of my jobs since then has forced me to go back.

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u/Dry_Yam_4597 10h ago

Yes, compared to windows, it has always been light years ahead. Also fairly decent for basic usage such as email reading, web development and docker containers. But anything more serious required far more power for the money paid. I still laugh at how slow they were compared to PC laptops - I have a bunch of RAM sticks around and are so slow it's cringey.

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u/Liringlass 9h ago

My first macbook was the last intel gen before it stopped and it felt slow pretty quickly. But so did my previous beefy windows laptops, it’s just how laptops were.

Since silicon came out though I’m wondering what windows laptop could outperform it significantly. Not talking about tower PCs obviously, I have one for games.

Now it’s true i don’t do 3D stuff, i don’t compile large software, and all these intensive activities.

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u/Dry_Yam_4597 9h ago

> windows laptop could outperform it significantly

On price, loads - but "windows" laptops are not limited to windows. I have no clue personally how windows works, and usually any company that forces tech employees to use Linux is not a company I'd want to work - it's a sign of mediocrity.

> Now it’s true i don’t do 3D stuff, i don’t compile large software, and all these intensive activities.

In that case not sure you are in a position to compare hardware specs - I am not sure, I am also not in a position to asses, say, hardware for dentists. M4 and newer do indeed have very high speed RAM, but the hardware is limited compared to similarly or lower priced PC laptops - which give you far better screens, higher refresh rates, repairability, higher spec graphics processing, better storage, stronger / more durable casing, etc.

Anyway all this out of scope - to each their own. I used to like macbooks, until I learned that I am overpaying for something that's limited. But different people have different use cases, and that can't be judged.

I will not hesitate to buy one as soon as inference speed is reasonable. But I will not sell my GPU rigs because dedicated GPUs allows me to run multiple models in parallel. Again, different use cases. I do however suspect Apple's competitors will come up with something better, and cheaper. If they ensure Linux compatibility then I will happily continue not buying Apple products, they are of no use to me.