## What’s New in Apple M5 Chips
## M5 Pro vs M5 Max – Key Differences
## A18 Pro in MacBook Neo Explained
## M5 vs M4 – Performance Comparison
## Apple Silicon for AI Workloads
With Apple silicon in Mac, customers get incredible performance, advanced technologies, and industry-leading power efficiency.With the M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chips in MacBook Pro and A18 Pro in MacBook Neo joining the M4 family and M3 Ultra chips, customers have even more options across the Mac lineup.
What’s new with M5 Pro and M5 Max
M5 Pro and M5 Max scale up the advancements from M5 to bring more performance for pro workflows and enable a big leap for AI-based tasks.
M5 Pro and M5 Max are built using the Apple-designed Fusion Architecture that connects two die to create a single system-on-a-chip (SoC). Each die in the M5 family is manufactured using third-generation three-nanometer technology.
The CPU introduces a new core architecture designed for multithreaded pro performance. It consists of 6 super cores that have the world’s fastest single-threaded CPU performance, and 12 all-new performance cores that are optimized for multithreaded performance and power efficiency.
Together, the 18-core CPU in M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver up to 30 percent higher multithreaded performance* for demanding pro applications.
The GPU brings the next-generation architecture introduced in M5, scaled up for pro performance. The M5 Pro GPU contains up to 20 cores, and the M5 Max GPU contains up to 40 cores. Both chips feature a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core, delivering up to 4x the peak AI compute power than the previous generation and up to 8x the performance of M1 Pro and M1 Max.*
The GPU in M5 Pro and M5 Max also features a new, advanced shader core and a third-generation ray-tracing engine with up to 50 percent faster graphics performance.*
M5 Pro and M5 Max also feature a faster 16-core Neural Engine and a powerful media engine. M5 Pro supports twice the unified memory capacity and twice the bandwidth of M5, supporting up to 64GB of memory with 307GB/s of bandwidth. Doubling that yet again, M5 Max supports up to 128GB of unified memory with 614GB/s of bandwidth.
A18 Pro in MacBook Neo
Apple silicon has redefined what’s possible on Mac laptops, delivering industry-leading power efficiency, performance, and capabilities.
MacBook Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip, so customers can fly through everyday tasks. Things like browsing the web, streaming content, editing photos, keeping up with friends, playing action-packed games, and using AI features in apps are incredibly fast and responsive.
Built using Apple’s second-generation 3-nanometer process technology, A18 Pro features a powerful 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine for everyday AI workflows. Coupled with 8GB unified memory, customers can seamlessly work between their favorite apps like Mail, Canva, Excel, WhatsApp, and Safari.
In fact, MacBook Neo with A18 Pro is up to 50 percent faster for everyday tasks than the bestselling PC with the latest Intel Core Ultra 5 chip.* And for more demanding activities, it’s up to 2x faster for things like photo editing* and up to 3x faster for on-device AI workloads.*
And MacBook Neo is available at a breakthrough price, so it’s ideal to mention to customers who are new to Apple or considering switching from PC.
Common questions about Apple silicon
Apple silicon chips power the Mac lineup. But are you ready to help your customers choose the right one for their needs?
FAQ
“Why does MacBook Neo have the A18 Pro chip and not an M-series chip?”
A-series chips are powerful and capable with a powerful CPU and GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. So customers can fly through everyday tasks, speed through apps, tap into creative hobbies, and use in-app AI features.
“Is 8GB of unified memory in MacBook Neo enough?”
With 8GB memory in A18 Pro, customers can easily tackle things like web browsing, creating and editing documents, streaming, using AI across apps, and more.
For customers who want to do more, MacBook Air with M5 is a great step up‚ as it comes standard with 16GB of unified memory and is configurable up to 32GB.
”Are the M5 family of chips more advanced than the M4 family of chips?”
M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max are incredibly powerful chips that bring outstanding performance, capability, and power efficiency to Mac. The M5 family of chips takes a leap forward in several areas.
M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a new CPU architecture with up to 6 super cores for incredible responsiveness and performance, and up to 12 performance cores for outstanding multithreaded performance and efficiency. They deliver up to 10 percent faster single-threaded performance and up to 30 percent higher multithreaded performance.* M5 features 4 super cores and 6 efficiency cores.
The GPU in the M5 family features a new shader core for faster graphics performance and a third-generation ray-tracing engine for improved rendering in games and pro apps. The M5 family also features Neural Accelerators in the GPU for up to 4x the AI performance.*
And faster unified memory in the M5 family fuels the entire chip.
“How much faster is the M5 chip than M4?”
The 10-core CPU in M5 features 4 next-generation super cores and 6 efficiency cores. The super core is the world’s fastest CPU core for single-threaded performance. Together, the efficiency and super cores deliver up to 15 percent faster multithreaded performance and up to 10 percent faster single-threaded performance than M4.
M5 also features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerators with up to 4x more peak AI compute power than M4, a next-generation graphics core with up to 60 percent faster graphics performance,* a faster 16-core Neural Engine, and a powerful media engine. And M5 increases unified memory bandwidth by nearly 30 percent, to 153GB/s.
“What’s the difference between M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max?”
With the step up from M5, to M5 Pro, to M5 Max, the number of CPU cores, GPU core count, unified memory capacity, and memory bandwidth increases at each step. With each increase, Mac can handle larger workloads and concurrent processing.
M5 features a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and supports up to 32GB of unified memory with 153GB/s of unified memory bandwidth.
M5 Pro features up to an 18-core CPU, up to a 20-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and supports up to 64GB of unified memory with 307GB/s of bandwidth.
With a much larger CPU and double the graphics performance and unified memory, M5 Pro is designed to tackle CPU intensive workloads like software development, music production, image processing, and scientific simulations, more demanding graphics and games, and advanced AI tasks.
M5 Max features the same 18-core CPU as M5 Pro, but doubles the graphics and unified memory again with up to a 40-core GPU, and supports up to 128GB of unified memory with 614GB/s of bandwidth.
M5 Max is designed for large, demanding pro applications like visual effects, compositing, advanced color grading, music composition, and on-device AI workloads like running massive LLMs, doing on-device training, and fine-tuning AI models.
”What new AI and machine learning capabilities can I expect with M5 chips? And how will they enhance everyday tasks and creative workflows?”
The M5 family of chips features a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core, delivering up to a 4x improvement in AI peak compute performance compared to the M4 family. This gives a massive boost for generative models, inference, and AI-driven apps right on the device. Coupled with a faster Neural Engine and higher bandwidth unified memory, everyday and professional tasks are faster and more responsive.
This benefits AI tasks across both everyday experiences and creative tasks. For example, summarizing e-mail is quicker, generative edits and effects in photo editing are faster, coding suggestions are nearly instantaneous, and customers can run larger LLM models with faster processing on-device.
Customers who do creative work, data analysis, on-device AI workflows, or just want better performance and more intelligent computing will notice significant improvements with the M5 family of chips.
