MacBook Pro with M5 Pro now comes standard with 1TB of storage, while MacBook Pro with M5 Max now comes standard with 2TB. And the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 now comes standard with 1TB of storage.
"Scaling up performance from M5 and offering the same breakthrough GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing than M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 8x AI image generation than M1 Pro and M1 Max."
Are they doubling down on local LLMs then?
I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution. Wondering if that will change with the overhaul of Siri this spring.
• Having NPU cores since the M1, would seem to verify that running models has been a game plan for a while. LLMs coming along can only have increased that focus.
• Studios with Ultra Mx, now 4-way RDMA over Thunderbolt 5, and enormous RAM and SSD options, suggest a strong focus. I don't know what else that RAM would be intended for. Four Studio Ultras (total of 360 GPU cores with M5 Ultras?) with 2TB of unified RAM is a local model beast.
• They refashioned their GPU cores to better support both graphic and neural processing, despite already having focused NPU cores.
I would say they have been leaning into local models for several years.
I expect we will see more models being optimized for smaller sizes, as demand for them increases. With hardware performance and neural focus trending up, and model requirements/quality trending down, the next few years will be interesting times.
What would make me happy: Ultra x 2 (i.e. 2xUltra, 4xMax, 8xPro, 16xM5) packaging in the Studio. With 8-way RDMA. Mac Kong. Perhaps Apple will start making server cards again.
Unfortunately it won’t be long til we’re all forced up to Tahoe anyway. Well, ee iOS developers will be anyway once they make the latest Xcode only work with it…
I thought that new models were typically released in October. Have I misremembered or is this an unusual timing vs previous years? If so, I wonder why the earlier release?
I typed “RAM” to search for it and boy they hammer home how lucky I am to be getting 1TB SSD standard, but no mention of RAM anywhere on this page. Anyway, the MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of RAM. It’s $400 to go from 16GB to 32GB.
Interestingly, 36-128GB models are showing as “currently unavailable” on the store page, and you can’t even place an order for them right now? But for anyone curious, it’s quoting $5099 for the 128GB RAM 14” MacBook Pro model.
Mine is an M2 Max with only 32GB of RAM and while I'm sure you're doing things that would choke it, and there are a few things I'd like to be able to do but can't, it's insane how rarely I ever notice load on it. It feels like it'll be sufficient for a long time.
Interesting that they're showing VFX/CG software (Autodesk MAYA and Foundry Nuke) so prominently - obviously people using "Pro" machines are the target audience for this, but both of those apps (any many others in the industry) use Qt for the interface, rather than being totally platform-native.
On M4 Max 128GB we're seeing ~100 tok/s generation on a 30B parameter model in our from scratch inference engine. Very curious what the "4x faster LLM prompt processing" translates to in practice. Smallish, local 30B-70B inference is genuinely usable territory for real dev workflows, not just demos. Will require staying plugged in though.
$200 price bump across the board. The cheapest 16" is now $2699 and 14" Pro $2199. I think it's a fair price considering M2Pro 14" was $1999 (though it was discounted) only had 512GB and 16GB RAM.
> The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max mark a major leap for pro users. There’s never been a better time for customers to upgrade from a previous generation of MacBook Pro with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac.
I read as "Whoops we made the M1 Macbook Pro too good, please upgrade!"
I think I will get another 2-5 years out my mine.
Apple: If you document the hardware enough for the Asahi team to deliver a polished Linux experiene, I'll buy one this year!
My personal M3 Pro is still going strong and it looks like the rest of the hardware is basically the same? I really don't see a reason to upgrade.
My work laptop is an M1 Pro and it is also doing totally fine. At work we used to do laptop upgrades on a 3 year cadence but the M-series laptops are so good that we switched to 5 years instead.
Mostly folks who bought base model with small amounts of RAM I imagine.
While it’s workable, anything less than 24GB to me feels rather constrained. I definitely am not efficient though - leaving way too many browser tabs open I never actually get back to, running a few chrome profiles for work/side hustle/personal, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever been CPU constrained for many years now. The few times I need to something that maxes out CPU just isn’t worth the upgrade vs taking a break to grab a cup of coffee.
I upgraded to an M3 Pro from an M1 Pro. I sold my M1 Pro at 90% of the original cost (not even exaggerating) on Facebook marketplace AFTER 2 YEARS.
I thought the buyer was insane to buy it at that price. But, of course mine had a decent spec and still had the Apple care warranty with very low battery cycle count. After the sale, the buyer told me the truth: The M1 is the best chip Apple ever made and I wouldn't see much of a difference in real world between the M1 Pro and an M3 Pro unless it was the Max version of the chip.
I didn't believe him then. But, after a year of being on M3 Pro, I gotta say he was spot on. Don't get me wrong, the M3 Pro is definitely faster in a lot of things. But not 3x or 2x faster like Apple always like to market. I can open a few extra tabs without slowing down, compile times (Elixir) did get somewhat faster. But definitely not faster to the point where there were two generations worth of performance improvements like Apple claimed.
Haha! I bought an M1 Max Macbook Pro and I maxed most of the specs. 64GB memory! (Except for the SSD, which I got the 2TB option.) I have not even THOUGHT about “upgrading” to a newer model. I have yet to even tax my system to any significant degree. Bad for Apple? How much are they worth?
Yep I’m still using an M2 MacBook Air with 8gb of ram to do development. Thank goodness the company I work for doesn’t use a bunch heavy infrastructure. I expect to use this for several more years at least.
Also M1 Pro owner, and it was the biggest leap ever. 2.5x speedup for build times over the last Intel Silicon, paired with 2x or so longer battery life, and better design in general (keyboard, ports).
What is tricky is not even CPU/GPU, but that in a Macbook it is impossible to upgrade RAM (easier to understand, as it is tied to the processor), but also the hard drive. Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet it is a decision by Apple, so people buy newer Macs more often.
Haha, can't be said better. M1pro is so good. Literally the only Jobs legacy, every other thing except silicon and laptop engineering is mediocre to dead now.
I have an M1 Max. Splurged a little. It continues to be able to do huge builds and run mid tier open weights AI models at usable speed.
This does look like a nice machine though.
I’ll probably wait for the M6 Max. If/when RAM comes down they might stuff 192 or 256 gigs in one, which would make it able to run larger tier open weights models.
128 is kind of an uncanny valley for models. Bigger than you need for the mid tier and too small for the huge ones.
The M1 is indeed too good. It seems like the best tool that Apple has to force users to upgrade is ending macOS support on it.
I keep telling people that the best laptop value on the market right now is to buy a refurbished MacBook Pro M1/M2. I stand by that from a usability and performance standpoint, but I feel weird about recommending a laptop that could only get security updates for another 3 years.
> There’s never been a better time for customers to upgrade from a previous generation…
Of all the stupid things Apple has said lately, this is the most obtuse, pro-market-insulting nonsense. Intel-based Macs were knee-deep in issues Apple wasn’t fixing, and then along came the snappy and always-cool M1.
That was the best time for customers to upgrade. The new Silicon generations can be quite good, but they’re not worlds ahead in anything.
I’ll upgrade my M1 when Apple releases a macOS worthy of being used by its pro customers.
Well that's. Just. Great. I bought a 64GB M4 Max MBP last month. I'm past the 14-day return window. I figured the M5 was near, but assumed M5 Max would come a bit later. Not sure where I came up with that.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadAlso, the mix of cores have changed drastically.
- 6 "Super cores"
- 12 "Performance cores"
I'm guessing these are just renamed performance and efficiency cores from previous generations.
This is a massive change from the M4 Max:
- 12 performance cores
- 4 efficiency cores
This seems like a downgrade (in core config but may not be in actual MT) assuming super = performance and performance = efficiency cores.
Are they doubling down on local LLMs then?
I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution. Wondering if that will change with the overhaul of Siri this spring.
• Studios with Ultra Mx, now 4-way RDMA over Thunderbolt 5, and enormous RAM and SSD options, suggest a strong focus. I don't know what else that RAM would be intended for. Four Studio Ultras (total of 360 GPU cores with M5 Ultras?) with 2TB of unified RAM is a local model beast.
• They refashioned their GPU cores to better support both graphic and neural processing, despite already having focused NPU cores.
I would say they have been leaning into local models for several years.
I expect we will see more models being optimized for smaller sizes, as demand for them increases. With hardware performance and neural focus trending up, and model requirements/quality trending down, the next few years will be interesting times.
What would make me happy: Ultra x 2 (i.e. 2xUltra, 4xMax, 8xPro, 16xM5) packaging in the Studio. With 8-way RDMA. Mac Kong. Perhaps Apple will start making server cards again.
Interestingly, 36-128GB models are showing as “currently unavailable” on the store page, and you can’t even place an order for them right now? But for anyone curious, it’s quoting $5099 for the 128GB RAM 14” MacBook Pro model.
Unless you are planning to do some serious inferencing, or complex multi-agent setup, then you don't need the memory.
I have not once felt the need to upgrade in years, and that’s with doing pretty demanding 3D and LLM work.
Also can you run batchwise effectively like vllm on cuda?
Enough to run multiple agents at the same time with throughput?
For those of us with astigmatism it's really night and day experience.
Oh really, it's universally better?
> For those of us with astigmatism it's really night and day experience.
Oh. So it's better for someone else with a specific eye condition, who is practically guaranteed to never use a MacBook that I buy?
> Even More Value for Upgraders
> The new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max mark a major leap for pro users. There’s never been a better time for customers to upgrade from a previous generation of MacBook Pro with Apple silicon or an Intel-based Mac.
I read as "Whoops we made the M1 Macbook Pro too good, please upgrade!"
I think I will get another 2-5 years out my mine.
Apple: If you document the hardware enough for the Asahi team to deliver a polished Linux experiene, I'll buy one this year!
My work laptop is an M1 Pro and it is also doing totally fine. At work we used to do laptop upgrades on a 3 year cadence but the M-series laptops are so good that we switched to 5 years instead.
Also, my wife's still using the older touch bar MBP, and we'll, it works fine for her too.
I'm not sure who needs the newer pros.
While it’s workable, anything less than 24GB to me feels rather constrained. I definitely am not efficient though - leaving way too many browser tabs open I never actually get back to, running a few chrome profiles for work/side hustle/personal, etc.
I don’t think I’ve ever been CPU constrained for many years now. The few times I need to something that maxes out CPU just isn’t worth the upgrade vs taking a break to grab a cup of coffee.
I thought the buyer was insane to buy it at that price. But, of course mine had a decent spec and still had the Apple care warranty with very low battery cycle count. After the sale, the buyer told me the truth: The M1 is the best chip Apple ever made and I wouldn't see much of a difference in real world between the M1 Pro and an M3 Pro unless it was the Max version of the chip.
I didn't believe him then. But, after a year of being on M3 Pro, I gotta say he was spot on. Don't get me wrong, the M3 Pro is definitely faster in a lot of things. But not 3x or 2x faster like Apple always like to market. I can open a few extra tabs without slowing down, compile times (Elixir) did get somewhat faster. But definitely not faster to the point where there were two generations worth of performance improvements like Apple claimed.
The M1 chip series is vastly underrated.
What is tricky is not even CPU/GPU, but that in a Macbook it is impossible to upgrade RAM (easier to understand, as it is tied to the processor), but also the hard drive. Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet it is a decision by Apple, so people buy newer Macs more often.
This does look like a nice machine though.
I’ll probably wait for the M6 Max. If/when RAM comes down they might stuff 192 or 256 gigs in one, which would make it able to run larger tier open weights models.
128 is kind of an uncanny valley for models. Bigger than you need for the mid tier and too small for the huge ones.
They probably can't do that because of potential patent issues that might surface.
Lawyers say no.
I keep telling people that the best laptop value on the market right now is to buy a refurbished MacBook Pro M1/M2. I stand by that from a usability and performance standpoint, but I feel weird about recommending a laptop that could only get security updates for another 3 years.
Of all the stupid things Apple has said lately, this is the most obtuse, pro-market-insulting nonsense. Intel-based Macs were knee-deep in issues Apple wasn’t fixing, and then along came the snappy and always-cool M1.
That was the best time for customers to upgrade. The new Silicon generations can be quite good, but they’re not worlds ahead in anything.
I’ll upgrade my M1 when Apple releases a macOS worthy of being used by its pro customers.
Wish it was Blender though ;)