Five years later, the M5 chip just made Apple silicon exciting again

There’s no doubt that in the five years since the M1 chip, Apple silicon has changed the MacBook in radical ways. We’ve seen a massive performance uptick compared to the prior Intel chips, phenomenal battery life, and cool and quiet performance. The difference is day and night.

But after a few years, we’ve gotten used to the improvements. Each Apple silicon chip feels impressive, but nowhere near as exciting as it used to be. In some ways, we’ve come to take it all for granted.

We can see that reflected in the M5 MacBook Pro. Both before and after it launched, this device was framed as an iterative update with very little to differentiate it from the M4 version. We were told to just expect a chip refresh and very little else, with many experts and analysts warning that the true update would be coming next year with the M6 MacBook Pro.

Part of this is undoubtedly true: the M5 MacBook Pro lacks the wide-ranging overhaul that the M6 edition is expected to get, with its predicted OLED touchscreen display and redesigned chassis. Compared to the M4 MacBook Pro, the M5 version has the same chassis, the same display, the same keyboard. It’s not exactly a thrilling update if your benchmark is getting something completely different from what has gone before.

Yet if you know where to look, the M5 chip update is actually a lot more impactful than you might imagine. Far from being one to avoid, it could be a great pick for a certain category of MacBook user. And beyond that, it hints at exciting things for the future.

The best is yet to come

While the M5 MacBook Pro might be hard to differentiate from its predecessor on looks alone, there’s a lot more to it under the hood. Don’t mistake it for some boring ho-hum refresh just because it looks similar to its M4 sibling.

As we found in our review of the M5 MacBook Pro, performance has increased across the board in meaningful ways. Apple has not only increased SSD speeds but doubled them compared to the previous edition, which in any other year would be heralded as a massive step forward. Graphics performance has charged way ahead of the M4 model, and this is increasingly important now that Macs’ gaming performance has never been better. And CPU output is also up across a range of tests, improving the everyday workflows you’ll likely buy the device for.

Other test results have even suggested that the M5 chip outperforms the M1 Ultra. Sure, that’s no longer the newest or shiniest Apple chip, but it was an incredibly high-end offering when it debuted. Now that power is available in the entry-level MacBook Pro.

Going on performance alone, then, this is a really solid upgrade, with some exceptional improvements over the M4 model hidden among the changes (particularly in terms of SSD speeds and GPU performance). It’s a welcome step up, especially if your budget won’t stretch to the forthcoming M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

And that touches on the best part of the M5: it’s the weakest entry in Apple’s current-generation chip line-up. The M5 Pro and M5 Max haven’t launched yet, and when they arrive in early 2026, they could take the MacBook to even greater heights.

Set for a big 2026

Apple usually sticks to releasing one chip series every twelve months. Next year, though, could be different, with the M5 Pro, M5 Max and M6 all expected to make an arrival (albeit at opposite ends of the year). Looking ahead to the M6, the signs are encouraging.

Just a few months ago, you might have assumed that this chip will be overshadowed by the other changes coming to the MacBook Pro in late 2026, namely an OLED touchscreen display and a thinner design. But the M5 shows that Apple can still squeeze impressive performance upticks out of its new chips, which in turn puts some of the emphasis back on the M6.

That idea gains ground when you consider the manufacturing process. The M5 is built using a 3nm process, but the M6 is expected to switch to a 2nm process. In layman’s terms, that will improve the chip’s performance and efficiency, which could mean even better battery life and faster CPU and GPU output. If the M5’s performance uptick looked impressive against the M4, wait until the M6 gets its time in the sun.

There’s also a report that the higher-end M5 chips are going to be drastically different from the base M5. Apple designed the M5 Pro and Max chips with separate CPU and GPU blocks, which means you might be able to configure a chip with, say, a base CPU setup but a maxed-out GPU. Apple is doing this to address the demand for parallel processing needed for tasks like AI. This is going to be the model for Apple silicon moving forward.

In other words, if there are reasons to be cheerful when it comes to the M5, things could get even better when its successor is released. Throw in the fact that the M6 model will be the 20th anniversary MacBook Pro and it feels like Apple is pulling out all the stops to mark the occasion.

But don’t feel as if you need to skip the M5 and wait until the M6 to get one of the best MacBook Pro models around. Sure, the M6 version is expected to have a lot more game-changing features than the M5. But the M5 offers solid performance in a familiar form factor. As long as you’re not doing hugely demanding tasks – rendering 8K videos, crunching enormous datasets, and the like – it’ll be an excellent companion. And if you are doing that sort of work, there are plenty of new MacBook chips on the horizon that will have you sorted.