Apple M5 Ultra Blender Benchmark Shows Huge GPU Leap, Nearly Catching the RTX 5090
Apple’s new M5 Ultra has surfaced in the Blender Open Data benchmark database, and the early numbers suggest a major performance jump for Apple Silicon. Equipped with an 80-core GPU, the chip appears to deliver a massive boost over previous Apple processors while putting serious pressure on high-end desktop graphics cards from Nvidia.
According to recent Blender benchmark entries, the 80-core Apple M5 Ultra GPU scored around 15,350 points. That is a dramatic improvement over the M5 Max, which reportedly lands near 8,112 points, and an even bigger leap compared with the M3 Ultra, which sits around 7,234 points.
For creators, 3D artists, and workstation users, that kind of increase is hard to ignore. Blender performance is especially important for rendering, animation, visual effects, and 3D production, making this result a strong indicator that Apple is continuing to push its Mac Studio-class hardware deeper into professional GPU territory.
The most eye-catching comparison is against Nvidia’s latest high-end desktop GPUs. The M5 Ultra easily moves ahead of the GeForce RTX 5080, which averages roughly 9,100 points in the same Blender benchmark. That puts Apple’s 80-core GPU in a much stronger position than many expected.
The RTX 5090 still holds the lead with a score of around 16,000 points, but the gap is surprisingly narrow. Based on these early results, Apple’s M5 Ultra is close enough to Nvidia’s flagship GPU to make the workstation market far more interesting.
That said, benchmark results should always be viewed with context. Blender Open Data uses standardized test scenes, and real-world performance can vary depending on the project, rendering engine, scene complexity, memory usage, and software optimization. Apple’s chip is likely using the Metal API, while Nvidia GPUs typically benefit from CUDA and OptiX acceleration, both of which are deeply established in many professional rendering pipelines.
Even so, the result makes one thing clear: Apple’s M5 Ultra is not just a minor refresh. It appears to be a major generational upgrade with enough graphics power to compete with some of the strongest PC hardware available.
Nvidia is still expected to retain advantages in raw compute performance, AI workloads, GPU acceleration support, and software compatibility across many professional applications. However, Apple has one major advantage that continues to stand out: unified memory.
A Mac Studio equipped with the M5 Ultra, 80 GPU cores, 96 GB of unified memory, and 1 TB of storage is priced just under $6,800. That is not cheap, but compared with the current cost of building a high-end PC with an RTX 5090, the value equation becomes more complicated.
A desktop PC with an RTX 5090, a 16-core Ryzen 9 processor, 64 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage can climb to around $9,000 depending on market pricing. GPU and memory costs remain extremely high, and in some cases, the RTX 5090 alone can approach the price of an entire M5 Ultra Mac Studio. The RTX 5080 is significantly cheaper at around $1,600, but it also trails far behind the M5 Ultra in this Blender result.
For users focused on 3D rendering, content creation, video production, and heavy creative workflows, Apple’s M5 Ultra could become one of the most compelling workstation chips on the market. Its combination of powerful GPU performance, high memory capacity, and efficient integrated design gives it a unique position against traditional desktop PCs.
The RTX 5090 remains the faster option in this benchmark and will likely continue to dominate in many GPU-heavy and AI-focused workloads. But the M5 Ultra’s Blender score shows that Apple is closing the gap faster than expected.
If these early benchmark numbers hold up in real-world testing, the Apple M5 Ultra could be one of the most important Mac workstation upgrades in years.
