A fresh batch of 14‑inch and 16‑inch MacBook Pros has hit the market, each sporting the so‑called “M5 Pro” or “M5 Max” chips built on what Apple proudly labels a “Fusion Architecture.” The idea, in plain English, is that Apple has glued two 3 nm dies together, hoping that a little more complexity will magically translate into more power. The chips promise an 18‑core CPU with a shiny new “super core” branding, and a GPU that doubles the core count from the previous generation while adding a Neural Accelerator to each core. Apple touts up to 30 % faster multithreaded performance over the M4 line and up to 2.5 × the speed of the old M1 Pro and M1 Max, all wrapped in a glossy case.
Memory, they claim, has gotten a boost: M5 Pro can now hold 64 GB instead of 48 GB, and its bandwidth jumps to 307 GB/s; M5 Max keeps its 128 GB cap but lifts bandwidth to 614 GB/s. Storage gets a speed bump too, with read/write speeds supposedly doubled and a base of 1 TB (or 2 TB for the Max). Wi‑Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 arrive via Apple’s new N1 networking chip, a modest upgrade from last year’s Wi‑Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. An updated Media Engine adds AV1 decoding, and a 16‑core Neural Engine supposedly speeds up on‑device AI tasks. Thunderbolt 5 ports are now individually controller‑driven, so all three can saturate their bandwidth at once, and the Max version supports up to four external displays.
Battery life, a perennial sore spot for Apple, is advertised as a staggering 24 hours on the 16‑inch model, with a 96 W USB‑C charger pushing the device to 50 % in half an hour. “A laptop that can run advanced LLMs on device and still have exceptional battery life?” asks the skeptical reviewer, with a smirk.
Pricing, of course, follows the familiar Apple playbook: the 14‑inch Pro starts at $2,199, the 16‑inch at $2,699. The Max variants jump to $3,599 and $3,899, while a base 14‑inch Pro with the plain M5 chip is listed at $1,699. All colors are the usual space black or silver. Pre‑orders open March 4, deliveries start March 11. The hype is high, the performance improvements modest, and the price tag remains stubbornly steep. No wonder people are still looking for a more convincing argument to ditch their old laptops.
Via Apple Unveils MacBook Pro Featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips With New Fusion Architecture
If it has a ‘smart’ prefix, it’s a dumb idea. That is all I have to say about that.