Is it silly to add a 5090 instead of getting a M5 Ultra Mac Studio?

Question

Title - prices are practically the same, the mac studio preorder was $5099+tax and adding a second 5090 into my system is about the same with the card and a bigger psu (current system has 1000w). Sucks but it is what it is.

The Mac Studio is 96GB M5 Ultra, system is 270k/Z890 Aorus Master/64GB.

My workflow runs out of context very fast on Qwen 3.8-27b even while running 32k limit on Q8, hence started looking into what more I can change. I see folks with 16GB cards running 3.8 just fine so there’s a part of me that tells me to hold my horses but seeing how 5090 pricing is over $5k now kinda want to make a move sooner than later.

Obviously the M5 Ultra has 96gb unified ram which is more than 2x5090, presumably going to be a little slower based on released specs, and has the added benefit of being a separate device.

Posted Sep 12, 2026, 12:01 PM UTC

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