Apple is launching two new chips using so many superlatives that it’s becoming a bit confusing. The M5 Pro and M5 Max are designed to power the manufacturer’s latest laptops.
Apple unveils the M5 Pro and the M5 Max. These are two new ARM-based chips tailored for MacBooks. The chips are intended to outperform the standard M5 and perform fifteen to thirty percent better than their predecessors from the M4 series, according to Apple.
There is no shortage of superlatives in the description of the new CPUs. The processors contain up to eighteen computing cores, six of which serve as performance cores. These cores are the equivalent of Intel’s P-cores, but Apple calls them supercores. The supercores are supported by performance cores (E-cores in x86-Intel), which, despite the name, are not optimized for performance but for efficiency and energy-efficient support of workloads.
On the chip, Apple combines the cores with a GPU of up to twenty cores, a Media Engine, a memory controller, a Neural Engine (NPU), and Thunderbolt 5 in what it calls the Fusion architecture. The M5 Pro and Max themselves consist of two 3 nm chips, each containing a portion of the above components. These are then brought together. Although this approach is portrayed as particularly innovative, it does not seem to differ drastically from other CPUs that combine similar components.
Apple M5 Pro
The M5 Pro has up to eighteen CPU cores on board, combined with twenty GPU cores. The extra CPU cores provide thirty percent higher performance for multithreaded workloads compared to the M4 Pro. The chip supports up to 64 GB of RAM.
Graphics performance also improves thanks to several tweaks to the GPU architecture. Apple speaks of a twenty percent improvement compared to the M4 Pro. Those who rely on ray tracing will see performance increase by 35%.
Note: the M5 Pro also comes in a light variant with fifteen cores (5 P + 10 E). By also bringing a version with fewer cores to the market, Apple increases the yield of the manufacturing process. CPUs that are not quite suitable for the M5 Max or M5 Pro with eighteen cores can then be used in the lower variant. This is a tactic that other CPU manufacturers also eagerly utilize, although they usually choose a different model name for the lighter version.
Apple M5 Max
Although Apple describes the M5 Pro as “the ultimate chip for demanding workflows,” there is an even more ultimate chip (ultimater? ultimest?): the M5 Max. This chip is the de facto ultimate CPU in the range, as Apple integrates the highest hardware performance here. The architecture is similar to that of the M5 Pro, but this chip gets up to 40 GPU cores alongside eighteen CPU cores. A variant with 32 GPU cores also exists.
On the CPU front, the generational difference is less significant than with the Pro: the Max performs fifteen percent better than its predecessor. However, the chip supports 128 GB of memory via a higher bandwidth: 614 GB/s. For the Pro, that is half. Apple points to the importance of this high bandwidth in the context of LLMs.
In terms of graphics, the M5 Max improves by twenty percent. Ray tracing improves by thirty percent compared to the M4 Max.
Leap compared to M5
Although the M5 Pro and Max are built on the same 3 nm process as the regular M5, the differences are significant. This is mainly because Apple packs more cores into the M5 Pro and M5 Max. For instance, the regular M5 contains a maximum of four performance and six efficiency cores, while the M5 Pro has up to eighteen cores (6 P + 12 E). For the M5 Max, that figure is the same.
The difference is also large in terms of RAM and GPU. Apple doubles the maximum available amount of RAM per model (32 GB for the M5, 64 GB for the M5 Pro, and 128 GB for the M5 Max). The GPU cores also double (up to ten for the M5, up to twenty for the M5 Pro, and up to 40 for the M5 Max).
Other improvements
Apple also mentions that the NPU contains sixteen cores, which should allow it to support AI on laptops more smoothly. Specifically, this refers to Apple Intelligence features. The aforementioned Media Engine is the component responsible for media encoding. H.264 and HEVC are supported (as with all somewhat current processors), as are ProRes and AV1.
Apple also refers to Memory Integrity Enforcement. This is a form of memory protection designed to prevent buffer overflow problems, among other things.
New laptops
Apple didn’t just develop the new chips for no reason. The American PC specialist is immediately launching new laptops with these processors as their beating heart. These are new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros, each configurable with M5 Pro and M5 Max.