Apple Doubles M5 Max Mac Studio GPU Upgrade Cost to $600 With Mandatory 48GB Memory

Q: Is Apple’s new Mac Studio still a good value when the 40-core GPU quietly forces a pricier memory jump?

Yes, but mainly in its base form or for buyers who actually need both more GPU and more memory. At $2,499, the M5 Max Mac Studio still looks competitive for a compact pro desktop. Apple has kept the entry price flat versus the previous model while adding meaningful upgrades such as Thunderbolt 5, Wi‑Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, faster storage, stronger AI performance, and support for heavier creative and development workloads. For many professionals, that base configuration remains the strongest value in the lineup. The problem is the upgrade math. Apple advertises the jump from a 32-core GPU to a 40-core GPU as a $300 option, but in practice it also forces memory from 32GB to 48GB, adding another $300. That makes the real step-up cost $600 and pushes the price to roughly $3,100. Buyers expecting a simple GPU bump are justified in seeing that as poor pricing transparency. Whether it is still a good value depends on workload. If your tasks are GPU- and memory-hungry — 3D rendering, large RAW stacks, heavy video effects, local AI models, large code builds — the bundled upgrade may still make practical sense, because extra unified memory often matters as much as GPU cores on Apple silicon. If you do not need that memory, the forced jump weakens the value proposition. So the Mac Studio remains a strong buy at the base level and a sensible tool for demanding pros, but the 40-core GPU option is less of a bargain than Apple’s headline price suggests.

Q: Why does Apple’s $300 Mac Studio GPU upgrade actually cost $600 once you click it?

Apple’s advertised $300 GPU upgrade really costs $600 because Apple ties that upgrade to a mandatory memory increase. On the new Mac Studio with M5 Max, the base $2,499 model comes with an 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 32GB of unified memory. Apple shows the jump to the 40-core GPU as a $300 add-on. But when a buyer selects that option, Apple’s configurator also automatically raises memory from 32GB to 48GB, and that extra memory costs another $300. That means the buyer is not paying only for more GPU cores. They are also being required to buy more unified memory, pushing the real added cost to $600 in total. This is why the higher-GPU configuration lands closer to about $3,100 rather than the $2,800 a shopper might expect from the headline GPU price alone. Apple now notes on its website that choosing some options changes other parts of the configuration as well. The issue matters because Apple keeps the Mac Studio’s starting price unchanged, but the configurator can make upgrades look cheaper than they are at first glance. In this case, the GPU upgrade is effectively bundled with a memory upgrade, so the sticker price understates the real cost.

3 articles · Updated · 9to5Mac · Aug 26

$2,499 remains the starting price for Apple’s new M5 Max Mac Studio, but moving from a 32-core to 40-core GPU effectively costs $600, not the $300 shown upfront.
The extra $300 comes from a required memory jump: selecting the 40-core GPU automatically switches the machine from 32GB to 48GB of unified memory.
Apple flags the change only through a configuration notice saying other parts of the setup have been updated, a pricing detail that drew attention after John Gruber tried to total the new options.
The issue tempers what initially looked like a straightforward refresh with unchanged entry pricing for the latest Mac Studio lineup.