Versus Engine
Mac Studio M2 Ultra vs Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB)
Specs, price and the one trade-off that actually decides it — Mac Studio M2 Ultra against Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB), side by side.
Cheaper to start
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB)
Starts about $2,000 lower.
Rated higher
Mac Studio M2 Ultra
9.8 vs 9.7 on our design scale.
Standout
Mac Studio M2 Ultra
M2 Ultra Chip with 76-core GPU
Mac Studio M2 Ultra
The ultimate local AI workstation for running massive 70B+ parameters models effortlessly thanks to 192GB of unified memory.
Where it wins, where it doesn't
Pros
- 192GB Unified Memory
- Dead silent operation
- Incredible power efficiency
Cons
- Zero upgradeability
- Very expensive at high configs
Specifications
- gpu76-core GPU
- tierenthusiast
- memoryUp to 192GB Unified
- storageUp to 8TB SSD
- processorApple M2 Ultra
- cuda_cores—
- memory_bus—
- architecture—
- recommended_psu—
- memory_bandwidth—
- total_graphics_power—
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB)
The fastest consumer card available, with 32GB of GDDR7 — and the power bill to match.
Where it wins, where it doesn't
Pros
- 32GB GDDR7 — runs 70B-class models quantised on a single card
- Fastest consumer silicon available
- Avoids the complexity of a multi-GPU build
Cons
- Roughly double the 5080's price for far less than double the performance
- 600W-class power delivery dictates case and PSU choices
- Poor value for anything that is not memory-bound
Specifications
- gpu—
- tier—
- memory32GB GDDR7
- storage—
- processor—
- cuda_cores21760
- memory_bus512-bit
- architectureBlackwell
- recommended_psu1000W
- memory_bandwidth1792 GB/s
- total_graphics_power575W