If you look at history and Intel as a chip manufacturer, year after year, they brag about their every new chip with only about 5% to 7% improvement and make a great deal out of it.
But for Apple, a 15% CPU or a 30% GPU performance gain are like no big deal. Just a website update to tell the world that it has a new chip in the family. No launch event, no announcement video, just typical Apple.
The funny thing is, whenever I think about it, if this were any other company in the tech industry, they would be congratulating themselves on how amazing they are.
So, it looks like with the fifth generation of Apple silicon, Apple is turning up the heat a little bit more.
We have enhanced CPU cores, a redesigned GPU and a new SSD controller. Lots of stuff. Three existing products have been updated with this chip, and Apple has claimed some commendable performances. So, let’s dive deep. You ready?
Does this chip matter?
The year-over-year gains have been substantial. Apple’s new M5 chip delivers surprisingly strong performance compared to the M4, both built on TSMC’s third-generation 3nm process.
Apple’s marketing now clearly targets its own silicon customers, explicitly pushing M1 users to upgrade by saying the M5 has made game-changing improvements.
When the M1 chip came out, it was so much faster than all of the Intel Macs that came before it.
The M3 introduced ray tracing. The M4 brought major CPU and GPU gains.
Now, the M5 pushes even further, doubles the performance of M1 and delivers the fastest single-core score we have seen in the industry, all within the same power envelope.
The M5 outpaces the M4 across the board: 15% faster multi-threaded scores, 10% faster single-threaded, up to 1.6 times GPU performance, 1.6 times higher FPS in gaming and 3.5 times faster AI performance.
The M5 also features an improved 16-core Neural Engine and hardware-accelerated codecs for 8K H.264, H.265, ProRes, ProRes RAW, and AV1 decode.
What are the performance gains?
M5 features the world’s fastest performance core, with up to a 10-core CPU (depending on device) made up of 4P cores and up to 6E cores.
It delivers the fastest single-core performance of any Apple Silicon to date.
The Multicore performance surpasses the M3 Pro and edges into M3 Max territory. So even though it is a base variant, the M5 is a powerhouse for many ‘pro’ workflows.
This generation sees a greater performance boost in E-cores than in P-cores—a deliberate move by Apple to enhance multicore scores.
Now the max clock speed for the P-core has gone up from 4.4 GHz with the M4 to 4.6 GHz with the M5.
The L2 cache increased from 4 to 6MB. This means a performance leap in both IPC and raw clock speed.
Let’s quickly revisit the core configurations over the years. Starting with the M1, which was really an 8-core processor, 4P core and 4E core, and then up to an 8-core GPU.
M2 basically remained the same, but we have got up to a 10-core GPU.
Then the M3, same setup as that for the M2. Again, performance increases because there were better cores.
Then, with the M4, we got a 10-core CPU, where, depending on the device it was going in, up to 4P cores, and again up to 6E cores and then up to a 10-core GPU.
Now, with the M5, the same 10-core CPU/GPU, with architectural and thermal variations depending on the device.
Progress has consistently meant more intelligent CPU and GPU core design.
The real upgrade in Apple’s M5 chip is its GPU, a complete architectural overhaul that redefines what a base Apple silicon can do.
It introduces a next-generation 10-core GPU with a dedicated Neural Accelerator in each core (like what we saw with the A19 chip in iPhone 17).
Since this is a 10-core GPU, that means you get 10 dedicated GPU neural accelerators.
This means that you get up to four times the peak GPU compute performance over the M4 and over six times peak GPU compute for AI performance compared to M1.
Building on the dynamic caching architecture first introduced in the M3, the M5 now features its second-generation caching, paired with third-generation hardware-accelerated ray tracing and a redesigned shader core that boosts triangle throughput and critical math rates.
Unified image compression further streamlines internal frame handling and reduces bandwidth and energy use without sacrificing fidelity.
Together, these upgrades deliver up to 45% higher graphics performance compared to the M4.
So, you are going to get some solid performance gains in GPU-bound workloads like 3D rendering, video editing, and gaming.
But the impressive thing about this GPU is that it is paired with dedicated neural accelerators and a 30% boost in unified memory bandwidth—now at 153GB/s, up from 120GB/s on the M4, 100GB/s on the M3, and more than double over M1, which can run larger AI models on-device and accelerate the AI compute performance.
This bandwidth powers not just the GPU, but also the CPU and Neural Engine, creating a tight-knit compute fabric.
So, someone working in the AI field, these could lead to some substantial performance.
Consequently, app developers now have three heterogeneous compute paths for AI tasks: CPU matrix multiplication, Neural Engine acceleration, and GPU-based neural compute.
Apple’s computing frameworks, like Core ML, intelligently route workloads to the most efficient hardware, while Metal 4 offers direct access to the new GPU accelerators for custom implementations.
To complement all of these, the M5, built-in storage controller, is now upgraded to PCIe 5.0.
This effectively doubles bandwidth, enabling faster SSDs to be added behind that interface, which significantly improves overall I/O performance.
As the SSD speeds double this year, we are going to see a massive jump across the board in read-write speeds.
Basically, everything from pixel pipelines to compute blocks has been touched, tuned, and optimized. So, which devices are armed with this M5 chip?
MacBook Pro
The base 14-inch MacBook Pro gets two new features beyond the supercharged M5 chip: a $150 nano-texture display option, and the storage can now go up to 4TB, though that is a $1200 Apple tax. Otherwise, it is the same feature set as last year.
The M5 handles local AI workflows well owing to higher memory bandwidth, but it caps out at 32GB of RAM.
So, if you need something more robust, you will need a different chip.
The SSD speeds doubled this year, but connectivity, however, remains unchanged.
As base chips get faster, the need for Pro and Max models contracts. I do not think people’s workflows are doubling in complexity year-over-year.
It is extremely rare for you to feel underpowered. So, if you are deciding between more RAM or storage, I would vote for RAM. And on top of all that, if you care about the display, speakers, a cooling fan and want more ports than a MacBook Air, well, this is the laptop for you.
That said, it is an interesting time to be buying.
iPad Pro
Apple’s redesigned M4 iPad Pro was brilliant—sleek, sharp, and stunning with OLED.
But seriously, have you ever actually felt your iPad run slow since the M1 chip showed up?
Yet, the 13.3-inch model steps up with the M5 chip, which means you will get zero friction. Everything is faster: apps, games, frame rates, and better AI throughput.
You get a higher memory bandwidth, and the base models now start with 12GB of unified memory instead of 8GB.
You also get twice the storage speed, Wi-Fi 7, and 50% faster cellular speeds owing to the new N1 and C1X chips.
Thunderbolt now supports 120 Hz displays, and fast charging is noticeably quicker compared to the M4.
Is this something that would make you consider upgrading?
But if you are a performance geek and you edit videos or do music production from your tablet, the M5 product is now available.
Vision Pro
The Vision Pro has also been updated to M5, a three-generation leap in silicon, with incremental changes, but it does offer some tangible benefits.
The weight remains almost unchanged. This may be because of the new dual-knit loop strap, which is a major upgrade over the original Solo Knit, offering better comfort with back and top-of-head support.
It features higher memory bandwidth and a significantly more capable GPU.
You also get a longer battery life for video playback, owing to the power-efficient M5 chip. Apple claims the M5 renders 10% more pixels compared to the M2 and enables refresh rates up to 120Hz to reduce motion blur when you look at the physical surroundings.
Spatial photos still look stunning. You can convert regular 2D images from your camera roll into immersive spatial scenes.
Also, AI-powered features are now 50% faster for system tasks like creating personas or transforming photos into spatial scenes and twice as fast in third-party apps compared to M2.
Well, I’m not a Vision Pro user—I wish I were. But on the flip side, it still seems like a very solitary experience.
Future
This indicates that Apple is going to set this chip up to be effectively the next broad application chip. The M2 played that role, stuck around in MacBook Air for years after it was current and used in Vision Pro and iPad Air.
So, every couple of generations, Apple introduces an M-series chip with a lifecycle extending well beyond the standard annual update. And it looks like the M5 chip is going to fulfil that role.
Well, what’s next? My answer: nobody knows. But imagine what will happen when Apple combines all of these and scales it up on the future M5 Pro and Max, and maybe even Ultra Chips.
We will see some incredible computation, that’s for sure.
Don’t you agree?
The writer is a contributor and a tech enthusiast.
