Apple M5 Ultra Makes a Huge Geekbench Debut, Challenging High-End Workstation CPUs
Apple’s new M5 Ultra has appeared in an early Geekbench 7 listing, and the results suggest the company’s latest desktop-class chip is entering serious workstation territory. With 36 CPU cores and a massive multi-core score, the M5 Ultra is showing performance that puts it surprisingly close to some of AMD’s much larger professional processors.
The benchmark appears to come from a new Mac Studio running macOS 27.0 and equipped with 256 GB of unified memory. The chip listed is a fully enabled Apple M5 Ultra with 36 CPU cores, reportedly divided into 12 high-performance “super” cores and 24 additional performance cores. Geekbench also shows a peak clock speed of around 4.6 GHz.
In Geekbench 7, the Apple M5 Ultra scored 3,774 points in single-core performance and an impressive 52,516 points in multi-core performance. That result aligns closely with Apple’s own claims that the 36-core M5 Ultra can deliver up to 1.3 times the multi-threaded CPU performance of the M3 Ultra.
What makes this score especially notable is how close it comes to some of the fastest workstation processors currently appearing in Geekbench 7 results. For example, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9985WX system with 64 cores scored 56,118 points, putting it only about 6.4% ahead of the M5 Ultra. Other results for the same AMD processor have appeared in the 54,000-point range, which keeps Apple’s 36-core chip remarkably competitive.
The comparison becomes even more interesting when looking at AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9995WX. That processor features 96 Zen 5 cores and 192 threads, yet one high-end WRX90 workstation scored 50,911 points in Geekbench 7. In that specific result, the Apple M5 Ultra is roughly 3% faster. Other scores for the 9995WX have landed between about 48,700 and 50,600 points.
Of course, this does not mean the M5 Ultra is universally faster than a 96-core Threadripper Pro or a powerful dual-socket EPYC server. Geekbench is a short, cross-platform benchmark, and it does not always scale perfectly across extremely high core counts. Real-world workloads such as rendering, scientific computing, virtualization, AI training, and large-scale simulation can behave very differently.
Still, the result is impressive. A 36-core Mac Studio competing in the same benchmark range as processors built for expensive professional workstations and server-class systems shows just how far Apple Silicon has advanced. The combination of high single-core performance, strong multi-core scaling, and large unified memory configurations makes the M5 Ultra a serious option for demanding creative and technical workflows.
This benchmark also sets expectations for Apple’s future ultra-class chips. Reports suggest the next-generation M7 Ultra could support up to 1.5 TB of unified memory, which would push Apple’s desktop platform even deeper into workstation and server-like territory. If Apple continues improving CPU performance at this pace, future Mac Studio and Mac Pro systems could become even more competitive against traditional high-core-count workstation hardware.
A separate Geekbench listing for a 12-core M6 chip in a Mac mini has also hinted at strong next-generation Apple CPU performance, with reported scores of 4,610 in single-core and 20,676 in multi-core testing. However, those results should not be compared directly with the M5 Ultra numbers, since they were produced using a different Geekbench version.
For now, the M5 Ultra’s Geekbench 7 debut gives a clear early look at Apple’s latest flagship desktop silicon. While benchmark scores are only one part of the performance picture, the 36-core M5 Ultra appears to be a major leap forward and one of Apple’s strongest moves yet into high-end workstation computing.
