The M2 Ultra is Apple's highest-end M2 chip that ships with the most powerful desktop Macs you can buy. So, if you want the best performing Mac, look no further than the one with the M2 Ultra.

But what makes Apple's M2 Ultra chip so special? And how is it better than the M2 Max and the M1 Ultra? We'll compare them below, but before that, let's find out which Macs come with the M2 chip.

Which Macs Can You Get With the M2 Ultra Chip?

mac pro m2 ultra upgradability
Image Credit: Apple

Unlike the M2 Pro or M2 Max, which is available across both Mac desktops and laptops, you can only get the M2 Ultra on high-end desktop Macs meant for professionals: the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro.

The Mac Studio comes standard with the M2 Max chip, though you can configure it with the M2 Ultra. And then there's the 2023 Mac Pro, which comes with the M2 Ultra as standard.

You can even configure a beefier variant of this chip on both Macs, packing a 76-core GPU for even better graphics performance. The latter is Apple's most powerful Mac for professionals, and while the Mac Studio is almost equally powerful, it misses out on PCIe expansion slots.

M2 Ultra vs. M1 Ultra

Apple M1 Ultra
Image Credit: Apple

Apple's M2 Ultra replaces the M1 Ultra that launched alongside the original Mac Studio in 2022. Compared to its predecessor, the M2 Ultra is fabricated on the second-gen 5nm node, which allows Apple to pack a lot more transistors, making the chip denser.

The company claims the M2 Ultra features 134 billion transistors, 20 billion more than M1 Max. The CPU and GPU core counts are up, too, with the M2 Ultra packing a 20-core GPU and a 60 or 76-core GPU. For comparison, the M1 Ultra shipped with a 20-core GPU and a 48 or 64-core GPU. The individual CPU and GPU cores are faster and more efficient as well.

Apple claims the M2 Ultra delivers 20 percent faster CPU performance and 30 percent faster GPU performance. And while the M2 Ultra can be configured with 192GB of unified memory, the M1 Ultra topped out at 128GB.

Other major performance leaps over the M1 Ultra include a 40 percent faster Neural Engine with twice the cores (32), a whopping 800GB/s memory bandwidth, and a more powerful media engine. Depending on your workflow, you can see a 50 to 100 percent jump in performance with the M2 Ultra over the M1 Ultra.

M2 Ultra vs. M2 Max

Apple M2 chip
Image Credit: Apple

Apple debuted the M2 Max chip at the beginning of 2023 with its refreshed MacBook Pro lineup. Featuring 67 billion transistors, a 12-core CPU, and a 38-core GPU, it's among the fastest chip you can get on a laptop. And this chip lays the foundation for the M2 Ultra as well.

Simply put, the M2 Ultra is basically two M2 Max chips glued together. The company notes this in its Apple Newsroom post, saying the two M2 Max dies are connected through UltraFusion—a high bandwidth interconnect technology. This is why the M2 Ultra packs double the core count of an M2 Max chip for its CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and media engine.

Thanks to UltraFusion, the two M2 Max dies are visible as one to the software. It also allows the chips to communicate with each other through a staggering 2.5TB/s of low-latency interprocessor bandwidth.

That said, if you're in the market for a powerful new desktop Mac, note that the entry-level Mac Studio is good enough for most people.

Is the M2 Ultra Chip Worth the Upgrade?

Yes, and no. The M2 Ultra can run up to 22 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video, drive six Pro Display XDRs, and provide 50% faster video processing performance in DaVinci Resolve than an M1 Ultra-powered Mac Studio.

If you're into heavy video editing, processing, or graphics work and think your workflow would benefit from the M2 Ultra's power, upgrading to an M2 Ultra Mac makes sense. These machines are also ideal for training massive machine learning workloads, which generally require several machines.

Unless you don't have such a demanding workload, it makes no financial sense to upgrade to an M2 Ultra-powered Mac. While your workflow will see a significant performance uplift, it won't be worth the thousands of dollars you'd need to splurge to get one.