There was a pleasant surprise in yesterday’s announcement of the Mac Studio with M5 Max chip: the starting price is unchanged from that of the M4 Max Mac Studio, at $2,499.
However, if you want to upgrade the GPU, there is a gotcha in the cost of doing so – it will cost you $300 more than Apple’s website initially indicates …
That hidden upgrade cost caught out John Gruber when he went to summarise the costs of each configuration of the new machines announced yesterday.
The base configuration of the machine is an 18-core CPU with a 32-core GPU. Apple then lists an upgrade to a 40-core GPU, which is very clearly displayed as costing an additional $300.
The gotcha is that selecting this option also changes the selected memory from 32GB to 48GB, which costs a further $300. Since you can’t upgrade the GPU cores without also upgrading to 48GB memory, then that upgrade actually costs twice as much as indicated, at $600.
Apple advises you of this in a slightly opaque way when you select the upgraded chip.
Based on your new selection, other parts of your configuration have been updated. Please review the changes.
Were you tempted by either the updated Mac Mini or Mac Studio models? Let us know in the comments.