The new M5 MacBook Pro has arrived — and brought something of a strategy change for Apple’s chip release strategy this year. This time around, Apple has led with the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, which retains the same $1,599 starting price as its M4 predecessor. It debuts alongside new 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros and a refreshed Apple Vision Pro that have the same M5 chipset, but — unlike last year — there’s no M5 Pro and M5 Max devices to be found.
In the past, Apple has favored launching its entire MacBook Pro lineup at once, as it did in 2024 with the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max models. However, it may have decided to release the M5 model now so it could get a jump start on sales, since the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions are reportedly still several months away. Apple may have also opted for a low-key release since the M5 MacBook Pro is largely unchanged from the previous model.
With that, the emphasis is squarely on the M5 chip and its extra performance. Reportedly due to cost reasons, Apple decided to use the same 3-nanometer fabrication process for the M5 as it did for the M4. The new chip has 10 GPU cores and 10 CPU cores, along with a 16-core Neural Engine.
Apple claims the M5 has the “world’s fastest CPU core” with up to 20 percent faster multithreaded performance compared with the M4 chip. As for the GPU, the company says that offers “up to 1.6x faster graphics performance in pro apps and enables up to 1.6x higher frame rates in games compared to the M4 model.” That should make the M5 MacBook Pro a better option than the M4 model for things like gaming and video editing.
To that end, compared with the M4 MacBook Pro, Apple says the latest model delivers up to 1.8x faster “AI video-enhancing performance” in Topaz Video, up to 1.7x faster 3D rendering in Blender and up to 1.2x faster build performance during code compiling in Xcode. The company is promising 3.5x faster AI performance than with the M4 model, and up to 6x faster performance than M1. It also claims SSD performance is up to twice as fast as the previous generation.
The M5 MacBook Pro comes with the same 14.2-inch, 3,024 x 1,964 Liquid Retina XDR display that can hit 1,000 nits in SDR mode and up to 1,600 nits peak brightness for HDR content. It has adaptive refresh rates at up to 120Hz and offers a wide P3 color gamut with up to 1 billion colors, ideal for video editors and Lightroom users.
Other key features include an SDXC card slot, HDMI port and 3.5mm headphone jack. There are three USB-C ports as before, but they’re still the Thunderbolt 4 type with speeds up to 40 Gbps, and not the 80 Gbps Thunderbolt 5 ports found on M4 Pro and Max models. It also comes with a six-speaker system with support for Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio as before, along with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 and a 12MP Center Stage 1080p webcam. As you might imagine, it comes with macOS Tahoe ready to go.
Per the comparison page on Apple’s site, except for the different CPU, the M5 MacBook Pro otherwise has identical specs to its M4 predecessor, right down to the same dimensions, weight and 70-watt power adapter.
The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro is now available for pre-order starting at $1,599 with 16GB memory and 512GB storage. It maxes out at 32GB of RAM and 4TB of storage. Shipping will start October 22.
Update, 12:52PM ET: Confirmed via Apple’s spec page that there are no real differences between the M4 and M5 MacBook Pro aside from the new CPU.
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