> Testing conducted by Apple in January 2026 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 4TB SSD, and production 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB SSD. Time to first token measured with an 8K-token prompt using a 14-billion parameter model with 4-bit quantization, and LM Studio 0.4.1 (Build 1). Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.
Are they doubling down on local LLMs then?
I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution. Wondering if that will change with the overhaul of Siri this spring.
> Even More Value for Upgraders
> The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max mark a major leap for pro users. There’s never been a better time for customers to upgrade from a previous generation of MacBook Pro with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac.
I read as "Whoops we made the M1 Macbook Pro too good, please upgrade!"
I think I will get another 2-5 years out my mine.
Apple: If you document the hardware enough for the Asahi team to deliver a polished Linux experiene, I'll buy one this year!
Interestingly, 36-128GB models are showing as “currently unavailable” on the store page, and you can’t even place an order for them right now? But for anyone curious, it’s quoting $5099 for the 128GB RAM 14” MacBook Pro model.
Also, the mix of cores have changed drastically.
- 6 "Super cores"
- 12 "Performance cores"
I'm guessing these are just renamed performance and efficiency cores from previous generations.
This is a massive change from the M4 Max:
- 12 performance cores
- 4 efficiency cores
This seems like a downgrade (in core config but may not be in actual MT) assuming super = performance and performance = efficiency cores.
> The tech giant says the chips are engineered around its new Fusion Architecture, an advanced design that merges two dies into a single, high-performance system on a chip (SoC), which includes a powerful CPU, scalable GPU, Media Engine, unified memory controller, Neural Engine, and Thunderbolt 5 capabilities.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/03/apple-unveils-m5-pro-and-m...
They also replaced the efficiency cores on the CPU chiplet with a new higher performance design.
> The CPU now features six “super cores,” which is Apple’s term for its highest-performance cores, alongside 12 all-new performance cores. Collectively, the CPU boosts performance by up to 30% for pro workloads.
I have not once felt the need to upgrade in years, and that’s with doing pretty demanding 3D and LLM work.
I have a Intel-based 2019 Macbook Pro still and I have NEVER in its lifetime gotten even half of what they are claiming here. These days if I run it from battery I might get 90 mins.
That said I had a maxed out Macbook Pro M4 Max on order but just cancelled it right now and will get this new M5 Max one for basically the same price. Once I saw that they didn't up the price of memory (I don't know how it doesn't affect them) I canceled my order.
For those of us with astigmatism it's really night and day experience.
MacBook Pro with M5 Pro now comes standard with 1TB of storage, while MacBook Pro with M5 Max now comes standard with 2TB. And the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 now comes standard with 1TB of storage.This is the important statement. 614GB/s is quite decent, however a NVIDIA RTX 5090 already offers 1,792 GB/s (roughly 3x) of memory bandwidth, for comparison.
It doesn't even look like they added cellular as an option with their own C1X chip (getting around the licensing / cost issues since it's their own chip now).
How is that different from the silicon interposer they were using before?
The big change is the two dies don’t have to fabbed next to each other in a single wafer, which is fantastic for costs and yields. But would this affect the interconnect speed somehow?
How would the two be wired together?
Could this mean the Ultra comes back in M6 since it would be easier to fab?
Wish it was Blender though ;)
It's one of those things, yes if I'm spending that much on a laptop I can afford to spend $80 on the adapter too, but does it feel good as a customer to do that or are you souring the experience of buying from you just to earn a few more dollars.
Which roughly translates to 30B Q8 size LLM at 10t/s for the M5 Pro and 60B Q8 size LLM at 10t/s for the M5 Max
For reference, RTX 3090 24GB has a memory bandwidth of approx. 936.2 GB/s, DGX Spark 128GB features a unified memory bandwidth of up to 273 GB/s
Might need to wait for the M5 Ultra or M6 Max with 128GB of RAM until the memory bandwidth is greater than a GTX 5090.
for reference, the M1 Max has 400GB/s of memory bandwidth, half a decade ago
I'm really wanting to build proper local-first AI workflows at home, and I think Apple has an opportunity to make that possible in a way other companies aren't really focused on, but we need significantly larger memory capabilities to do it, which I know is tough in the current memory market but should be available for a cost.
Actually, I can think of one hardware want: have they gotten it to where you can do external GPUs and the like more easily?
Would still buy one over any other laptop on the market today for what I use them for.
Just about to be time for me to get a new laptop. Typically I buy a generation behind, but want to make sure I won't miss anything huge.
LOL. is it repairable? probably not.
This is just marketing speak. Stop repeating marketing. It isnt a walled garden, its a walled prison.
Unified memory is just regular memory. There is nothing special about integrated GPUs.