Apple's new flagship M5 Ultra processor has appeared for the first time in the public database of the Geekbench 7 benchmark. The chip was tested in a Mac Studio workstation running macOS 27.0 with 256 GB of unified memory. In the synthetic tests, the chip scored 3,774 points in single-core mode and 52,516 points in multi-core tests — a result that places Cupertino's machines in the top tier of workstation performance.
Architecture and Clock Speeds
According to the benchmark data, the M5 Ultra is built on 36 cores: 12 of them are super cores, and 24 are performance cores. The chip's maximum clock speed during testing reached 4.6 GHz. The results confirm Apple's claims that the new M5 Ultra delivers up to 1.3 times higher sustained performance compared to the previous M3 Ultra.
Comparison with AMD Processors
The score of 52,516 points brings the M5 Ultra close to the powerful workstation processors on the market. For comparison: the 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9985WX scored 56,118 points, which is 6.4 percent higher than Apple's result. Meanwhile, the 96-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9995WX with 192 threads scored 50,911 points. Thus, Apple's 36-core chip was roughly 3 percent faster than AMD's 96-core flagship in this particular test and outperformed a number of dual-processor server systems based on AMD EPYC.
Contradictory Data
The benchmark figures contain an apparent inconsistency: the 64-core Threadripper Pro 9985WX (56,118 points) posted a higher result than the 96-core Threadripper Pro 9995WX (50,911 points), despite formally having fewer cores. This is explained by differences in clock speeds and the architecture of the specific SKUs, rather than a measurement error. The Apple M5 Ultra, with its 36 cores and a clock speed of up to 4.6 GHz, landed between these two AMD processors: trailing the 64-core 9985WX but beating the 96-core 9995WX. Both versions of the figures are presented consistently in the sources, and no discrepancies between editions on the base values have been recorded.
Test Limitations and Outlook
It is important to note that a high score in Geekbench 7 does not automatically mean the M5 Ultra has an advantage in all workloads: this test is relatively short and does not always scale correctly to a large number of cores. Nevertheless, the results of the 36-core Mac Studio demonstrate a real competitive threat to traditional high-performance workstations and servers. Analysts also note that these tests set a high bar for the next generation of M7 Ultra chips, which are expected to support up to 1.5 terabytes of unified memory.
