Apple launched the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips alongside the launch of the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Both are built using third-generation 3nm technology and combine the CPU, GPU, Media engine, Neural engine, memory controller and Thunderbolt 5 built-in.
The M5 Pro is equipped with an 18-core CPU and up to 20-core GPU. In terms of performance, it offers up to 4x the GPU computing power increase over the M4 Pro chip and 6x the M1 Pro. The chip supports up to 64GB of memory with 307GB/s of bandwidth.
Of the 19 CPU cores, 6 are super-powerful cores while the other 12 are more energy-efficient performance cores. The result is up to 2.5x faster multi-threaded performance than the M1 Pro/Max and up to 30% faster for professional workloads than the previous generation.
The M5 Max is equipped with an 18-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. The chip is aimed at 3D animators, AI researchers, and app developers. GPU computational performance is up to 4x the previous generation and up to 6x the M1 Max. It is also 30% faster for ray tracing than the M4 Max. The M5 also supports up to 128GB of memory with up to 614GB/s of bandwidth.
In addition, the 16-core Neural Engine used is faster for Apple Intelligence and runs AI directly on the device.
