The M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pros are a bigger upgrade than we thought

Apple on Tuesday announced new MacBook Pro models that feature the M5 Pro and M5 Max, high-end chips that replace the M4 Pro and M4 Max. The M5 Pro and M5 Max offer significantly boosted performance over the base M5 chip in the 14-inch MacBook Pro that was released in October, along with a few surprises.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max are a departure from the previous M-series Pro and Max chips in that they feature the new Fusion Architecture that “brings together two third-generation 3nm dies with high bandwidth and low latency using advanced packaging,” according to Apple’s announcement. These new chips have separate CPU and GPU dies, which allows for more flexibility in core configurations.

The new chips feature a CPU with what Apple calls “super cores” and “performance cores,” replacing the previous M-series chips’ performance cores and efficiency cores. The super cores offer the “highest-performance core design with the world’s fastest single-threaded performance, driven in part by increased front-end bandwidth, a new cache hierarchy, and enhanced branch prediction.” The performance cores are “optimized to deliver greater power-efficient, multithreaded performance for pro workloads.”

Additionally, the M5 Pro and Max offer 2.5 times the multi-threaded performance of the M1 Pro and Max, while the M5 Max’s multithreaded performance is 15 percent faster than the M4 Max. The new super cores are essentially a rebranding, and Apple has applied the new naming scheme to the CPU cores in the existing M5 chip as well.

The GPUs feature an enhanced shader core with second-generation dynamic caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading, which Apple states is 20 percent faster than the M4 Pro. It also features a third-generation ray-tracing engine that is up to 35 percent faster than M4 Pro. Apple also claims that the M5 Max GPU is 20 percent faster than the M4 Max.

The M5 Pro starts with a 15-core CPU (5 super cores, 10 performance cores) paired with a 16-core GPU, and is also available with an 18-core CPU (6 super cores, 12 performance cores) and a 20-core GPU. The M5 Max starts with an 18-core CPU (6 super cores, 12 performance cores) and a 32-core GPU. It can be upgraded to a 40-core GPU.

Apple states that the new chips offer Memory Integrity Enforcement, “an industry-first, always-on memory safety protection that does not compromise device performance.” This feature was initially introduced in the A19 chip and the iPhone 17.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max are available in both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Below are the key laptop specifications:

The design of the laptops remains unchanged and is still available in two colors, Space Black and Silver. The laptops have three Thunderbolt 5/USB-C ports, an HDMI port, an SDXC Card slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a MagSafe 3 port for charging.

Both models feature Liquid Retina XDR displays with an XDR brightness of 1000 nits sustained 1600 nits peak (HDR content only), and SDR brightness of 1000 nits. The displays support True Tone, ProMotion, and the P3 color gamut, and a Nano-texture glass option is available.

For battery life, the specifications given are the same as with the M4 Pro and Max. Apple states the following:

• M5 Pro
  • 14-inch model: 14 hours wireless web
  • 16-inch model: 17 hours wireless web
• M5 Max
  • 14-inch model: 13 hours wireless web
  • 16-inch model: 14 hours wireless web

Starting prices for the laptops are a little higher than before, though the starting storage is higher. All M5 Pro models start at 1TB of storage, while the M5 Max models start at 2TB of storage:

• 14-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro: $2,199
• 14-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro: $3,599
• 16-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro: $2,699
• 16-inch M5 Max MacBook Pro: $3,899

The new laptops will be available for preorder on Wednesday, March 4, and go on sale on Wednesday, March 11.