Apple has just unveiled new iterations of the high-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M5 Pro and Max family of chips, with up to 128GB of memory. This launch is a part of Apple’s “big week” of announcements.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro was already available with the base M5 chip, along with options to upgrade to the M4 Pro and M4 Max. With today’s announcement, the MacBook Pro lineup is complete with the M5 family of chips.
According to Apple, “M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a new 18-core CPU architecture. It includes six of the highest-performing core design, now called super cores, that are the world’s fastest CPU core. Alongside these cores are 12 all-new performance cores, optimized for power-efficient, multithreaded workloads. Collectively, the CPU significantly boosts performance by up to 30 percent for pro workloads.2 The GPU scales up the next-generation architecture introduced in M5 to an up-to-40-core GPU. With a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core and higher unified memory bandwidth, M5 Pro and M5 Max are over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation.2 The GPU substantially increases graphics capabilities — now up to 35 percent for apps using ray tracing than M4 Pro and M4 Max — enhancing advanced visual effects and 3D rendering.”
The base M5 Pro features a 15-core CPU and a 16-core GPU and can be configured with up to an 18-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU. The memory options now start at 24GB, and are configurable up to 48GB, along with storage options of 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB.
The base M5 Max, on the other hand, boasts an 18-core CPU and a 32-core GPU and can be configured with up to an 18-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU. The memory options are now plenty, starting at 36GB, with options to configure it to 48GB, 64GB, 96GB, and a whopping 128 GB. However, the upgraded memory variants are only available for the M5 Max with a 40-core GPU. If you configure the chip to have a 16-core CPU and a 40-core GPU, your memory options will start at 48GB, instead of 36GB, along with options to configure it to 64GB or 128 GB. Here are the storage options for the M5 Max chips: 2 TB, 4TB, and 8TB.
Pricing and Availability: The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base M5 chip still starts at $1,699 now with 1TB of starting storage, and the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the more advanced M5 Pro chip starts at $2,199, while the M5 Max variant starts at $3,599. The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,699 for the M5 Pro variant and $3,899 for the M5 Max variant. All the new models will be available to Pre-order on March 4th at 6:15 a.m. PT and will be available starting March 11th.
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