Apple didn’t just stop at the MacBook Air; they have also announced the updated MacBook Pro range. These new machines are powered by the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which debut a new Fusion Architecture. This basically involves bonding two third-generation 3nm dies into one single chip using some very advanced packaging techniques.
Both chips come with an 18-core CPU, featuring six super cores alongside 12 efficiency cores. Apple is promising multithreaded performance that is up to 30% faster than what we saw with the M4 generation, and a massive 2.5 times faster than the original M1 Pro and Max. It looks like a significant jump for anyone who has been holding out on an upgrade.
The graphics department is just as beefy. The M5 Pro gets up to 20 GPU cores, while the M5 Max doubles that to 40. Every GPU core now includes a Neural Accelerator, which Apple reckons delivers over four times the peak AI compute compared to the M4 Pro and Max. Overall graphics are up to 50% faster, with ray-tracing tasks getting a 35% boost over the last generation.
Memory and storage have also seen a bit of a lift. The M5 Pro now supports up to 64GB of unified memory with bandwidth hitting 307GB/s, while the M5 Max keeps its 128GB cap but boosts bandwidth to 614GB/s. Storage is notably quicker too, with read and write speeds reaching 14.5GB/s, which is twice as fast as the M4 models. Even better, base storage has increased, so M5 Pro models now start at 1TB and M5 Max models start at 2TB.
For connectivity, these laptops feature the new N1 wireless chip, meaning you get Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support. Under the hood, there is a 16-core Neural Engine designed to make on-device Apple Intelligence tasks feel even snappier, plus an updated Media Engine that adds hardware-accelerated AV1 decode. They have also introduced a new security feature called Memory Integrity Enforcement to keep things extra safe.
The ports are also more capable this time. While Thunderbolt 5 carries over, each port now gets its own dedicated controller on the chip. This means you can actually use all three ports at full bandwidth at the same time without them fighting for resources. If you like a lot of screen real estate, the M5 Pro supports two high-resolution monitors, while the Max can handle four.
Battery life remains a strong point, reaching 24 hours on the 16-inch model, and you can fast-charge to 50 % in just 30 minutes if you have a 96W adapter or higher.
Pricing and Availability
Price-wise, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at RM8,999, and the 16-inch version starts at RM10,999. For the M5 Max, the 14-inch starts at RM14,999 and the 16-inch at RM15,999.
There is also a standard M5 14-inch model with 1TB of storage for RM6,999. You can pick any of them up in either space black or silver.
The M5 Pro/Max models will be available for order “soon”, while the M5 model is available for purchase now.