M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro review: more of the same
20.3.2026
Translation: Katherine Martin
Pictures: Samuel Buchmann
Apple has taken some new chips and stuck them in the familiar garb of its pro laptop. Though the move represents solid advancement, it’s not particularly innovative.
More. More cores, more power, more memory. The new MacBook Pro, featuring the M5 Pro and the M5 Max, promises the kind of advancements I’ve grown used to over the last four generations. And yet, the question of who’d actually need to buy a MacBook Pro’s pricey configurations is becoming ever more relevant.
With this in mind, I’m putting the new chips under the microscope. I’m particularly keen to find out if their increased performance will impact battery life. I won’t go into the design, display, speakers, connections, keyboard or trackpad. Those are as good as ever. If you fancy finding out more about them, I’ve written about them here and here. For this article, I’m testing the 14-inch model with the M5 Pro and the 16-inch version with the M5 Max. The full versions of the chips with all the available cores have 24 and 48 gigabytes (GB) of RAM respectively.
Performance: a leap forward
Like their predecessors, the M5 chip generation’s based on 3-nanometre production, now using TSMC’s latest process (N3P). The result? Faster cores, but not necessarily better energy efficiency. Apple has used so-called Fusion architecture for its Pro and Max chips for the first time – something previously only used in the M3 Ultra. This involves two dies being joined to form a system-on-a-chip (SoC). The technique, referred to as chiplet design by other manufacturers, makes production more efficient by creating less waste.
Apple has completely overhauled the CPU, now dividing it into not just two, but three types of cores: super cores, performance cores and efficiency cores. The M5 Pro and the M5 Max consist exclusively of the first two. The super cores basically seem to be the old performance cores on steroids. As for the new performance cores, they’re probably weaker than the old ones, but stronger than the efficiency cores. Apple still uses the latter for its less powerful chips, such as the basic M5. The M5 Pro and the M5 Max share the same CPU, with up to 18 cores.
Less dramatic changes have been made to the GPU. It still consists of up to 20 cores in the M5 Pro and up to 40 cores in the M5 Max. Apple has now integrated a neural accelerator into each core. What’s more, the new GPUs’ memory bandwidth is higher than that of the predecessor chips.
The SSD’s now at least one terabyte (TB) in size if you buy a MacBook Pro fitted with the M5 Pro. On devices with the M5 Max, it’s at least two TB. It’s also significantly faster. I measure write and read speeds of around 13,000 megabytes per second, meaning it’s almost twice as fast as the previous model’s SSDs.
CPU: the fastest cores ever
The new super cores achieve a higher performance in single-core mode (slide 1 in the graphic below) than any other processor. And I’m not just talking about Apple processors – I’m talking about the entire industry. Even the most powerful desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel come in at 27 per cent and 34 per cent behind the M5 Max in Geekbench respectively. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme comes close at seven per cent. Apple’s new chips’ most recent predecessors (the M4 Pro and the M4 Max) are about ten per cent slower.
When all cores are working at full capacity (slide 2), the new chips’ lead over their predecessors increases to 14 per cent in each case. At the same time, AMD’s, Intel’s and Qualcomm’s top CPUs fall over 20 per cent behind, although they all consume more power. As things stand, Apple’s CPU dominance is impressive.
GPU: the Max has evolved more than the Pro
The new chips also boast better graphics performance than the M4 generation. According to Apple, it’s an improvement of «up to 30 per cent». My benchmarks, however, show that «up to» is doing some pretty heavy lifting. On average (slide 1 in the graphic below), the M5 Max achieves 16 per cent higher scores than its predecessor. Meanwhile, the M5 Pro outperforms the M4 Pro by a mere nine per cent. I only achieve the promised 30-per-cent improvement in Cinebench R24 (slide 2), which supports ray tracing.
I’ve recently started testing performance in Cyberpunk 2077, which has been available in a native version on MacOS since last year. The M5 Max achieves an average of 73 frames per second (fps) in a resolution of 1440p, without highly detailed ray tracing, upscaling or FrameGen. Although this is 26 per cent higher than the frame rate achieved by the M4 Max, it’s still 33 per cent lower than Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (109 fps).
Productivity: the M5 Max is a beast
I notice an astonishing performance increase when exporting video in DaVinci Resolve. The M5 Max renders a twelve-minute project with colour grading, animated titles and various special effects in just two and a half minutes. That’s more than 40 per cent faster than the M4 Max. The faster chip, higher bandwidth and speedier SSD all seem to come together in this scenario. The M5 Pro also beats its predecessor by 34 per cent.
During my export test in Lightroom, the M5 Pro outperforms the M4 Pro by as much as 41 per cent. The M5 Max, on the other hand, performs at roughly the same level as the old chip. Why? I couldn’t tell you. Even after retesting it several times, I get the same result. I’m pleasantly surprised by the results when rendering an AI noise filter and a scene in Blender, both of which require a lot of GPU power. The M5 Max achieves 33 per cent better results than its predecessor in both tests, while the M5 Pro achieves 34 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
Battery life: a step backwards in less intensive tasks
Both the larger CPU and the switch from efficiency cores to «optimised» performance cores negatively impact power consumption – especially when the laptop’s idling or performing less intensive tasks. The 16-inch MacBook Pro containing the M5 Max lasts 15 per cent less time in my YouTube battery test (slide 1 in the graphic below). The 14-inch version containing the M5 Pro actually runs out of juice 20 per cent faster than its predecessor.
Under load, the M5 Pro is more efficient than the M4 Pro (slide 2), consuming 30 per cent less power during five exports of my test video. The M5 Max is roughly on a par with the M4 Max. Used for a mix of demanding and less-demanding tasks, the new MacBook Pro would probably still last slightly less long than last year’s model. In absolute terms, however, the battery life is still so good that this minor regression’s basically irrelevant in practice.
In a nutshell
Good, but where’s the innovation?
The new MacBook Pro is neither a nasty nor a pleasant surprise. It delivers significantly better performance, which, depending on the program, is also put to use. Mind you, whether you’ll actually notice it at this high level is another matter. The M5 Max especially is so fast that only high-end workflows benefit noticeably from this improvement. What’s more, the larger CPUs consume more energy in idle mode than their predecessors.
On the plus side, Apple’s relentless enhancements deliver better value for money every year, because the same tasks require less and less expensive configurations over time. Users who previously needed an M1 Max can now get by with an M5 Pro. In fact, for most people, even the basic M5 will probably cut it.
As great as this is, I’m slowly but surely starting to crave more innovation. Whatever happened to the iPad Pro’s tandem OLED display? And why’s the MacBook Pro still so chunky? For a long while now, the chips have been efficient enough to sacrifice a little battery life for a slimmer case. Rumour has it that we might see this by the end of 2026. Customers will likely have to dig deep into their wallets for these innovations though. Reportedly, the new MacBook’s set to be given an «Ultra» designation, all while Apple keeps the M5 MacBook Pro in its range. I’m curious to see how this’ll pan out.
Pro
- Enormously high performance
- Larger, faster SSD
- Very good battery life
- Elegant design, perfect build quality
- Top-quality display and speakers
Contra
- No original innovations
- Expensive RAM and SSD upgrades
Samuel Buchmann
Senior Editor
Samuel.Buchmann@digitecgalaxus.chMy fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.
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