Apple has introduced M5 Pro and M5 Max in the new MacBook Pro, describing them as its most powerful chips yet for a pro laptop and putting a major focus on on-device AI performance.
The chips were announced as part of Apple’s all-new MacBook Pro launch, alongside Touch, Dynamic Island and the new PROLED XDR tandem OLED display.
Apple says both chips deliver faster single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance along with higher unified memory bandwidth for demanding professional workloads.
M5 Pro is aimed at users including software developers, scientists, engineers and creative professionals, while M5 Max targets even heavier workflows such as 3D visual effects, AI development, film scoring and 8K video post-production.
A Neural Accelerator is built into each GPU core, which Apple says can speed up AI tasks including running coding agents with on-device large language models. M5 Max is capable of running models with hundreds of billions of parameters locally, according to Apple.
The chips also include enhanced shader cores, third-generation ray tracing and Dynamic Caching, with Apple highlighting performance gains in apps such as Blender, Unreal Engine and Cinema 4D.
The new MacBook Pro can be configured with up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 16TB of storage.
Pre-orders are open now, with availability beginning Friday, November 6.
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