Apple today announced M5, delivering the next big leap in AI performance and advances to nearly every aspect of the chip. Built using third-generation 3-nanometer technology, M5 introduces a next-generation 10-core GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, enabling GPU-based AI workloads to run dramatically faster, with over 4x the peak GPU compute performance compared to M4.1 The GPU also offers enhanced graphics capabilities and third-generation ray tracing that combined deliver a graphics performance that is up to 45 percent higher than M4.1 M5 features the world’s fastest performance core, with up to a 10-core CPU made up of six efficiency cores and up to four performance cores.2 Together, they deliver up to 15 percent faster multithreaded performance over M4.1 M5 also features an improved 16-core Neural Engine, a powerful media engine, and a nearly 30 percent increase in unified memory bandwidth to 153GB/s.1 M5 brings its industry-leading power-efficient performance to the new 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, allowing each device to excel in its own way. All are available for pre-order today.
Kinda unusual we didn’t have an event/fanfare for this drop even though the performance claim seem pretty great. Bummed the hardware isn’t seeing big changes. Interesting move to launch 14” MBP first.
And a tall leap needed for AMD/Intel/Snapdragon to eclipse this one. 2026 is around the corner with big strides in good, power efficient & powerful laptops.
Pretty silenced announcement tbh , do people really need more power , I have never seen any mac / ipad user utilizing even 10% of their apple silicon potential
Same reason as the Air I suppose — so they don’t eat into the sales of more expensive MBP model, since it comes with the baseline chip now. Impatient folks will get these. It’s also possible (though, doubtful) that Air/Mini might have more substantial changes that might warrant events late this year or early next year.
Edit: I’m a bit bummed that the C1 chip hasn’t made its way into the MacBook. I’m hoping they will for the models that didn’t get announced.
In phone, computers, tablets, any kind of performance gains is always good. Doesn’t matter if user is using it to full potential or not. It’s noticeable. Maybe not at launch time but in future with updates.
A new feature implemented on the latest device, is able to run on a 5-6 year old device, made possible by the extra performance gains that the 5 year old device had when it launched.
It is like a anomaly specific to the consumer electronics.
A new car boasting double the horsepower doesn’t necessarily translate to a more thrilling driving experience, only when you stretch it.
But in consumer electroincs you end up using the double performance gains by the end of it’s lifecycle.
Newer processors run newer code more effeciently than older processors due to improvements in IPC etc, the only way for the older hardware to keep up is due to it’s raw performance.
The M5 pro chip is expected to release by Feb/Mar. The only drawback of this machine is that is limited to 32GB RAM. Otherwise it is fairly powerful with much improved memory and storage bandwidth. An option of 48GB RAM would have easily cannibalized into the M5/M4 Pro market.
Meh. The usual Apple’s way of inflating performance numbers like Nvidia, when the real-life performance gains is around 10-15%. Also, bold of Apple to talk about AI, when they are least interested and most lagging in this space.
Instead of trying to release M-series iterations every year, like mobile SoCs, un-necessarily, they should focus more on the software side of things. Mac OS 26 is a mess by 2025 software standards and puts them on the same page as Microsoft with their Windows 11 turd.
