From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.misc



Apple's 'Big Week' Gets Even Bigger with the M5 Pro MacBook Pro
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The new M5 family introduces Fusion Architecture and 'Super Cores.'

Apple eased into its promised "big week" of product announcements
yesterday with the iPhone 17e and the M4 iPad Air - two very welcome
but not entirely surprising entries. Now, for day two, it's putting
the finishing touches on its MacBook Pro lineup with the new M5 Pro
and M5 Max models that were conspicuously missing from its October
MacBook Pro release.

In a pair of separate newsroom announcements today, Apple first
highlighted the new M5 Pro/Max chips on their own, and then
announced its higher-end MacBook Pro laptops that will be the first
home for these powerful chips.

As predicted by analysts and supply chain reports, Apple has
rearchitected its flagship M5 silicon, which may explain why the new
chips didn't launch alongside the base M5 last fall. The chips were
reportedly being designed and fabricating using TSMC's SoIC-mH
packaging process, which allows the CPU and GPU to be separated.
This "server-grade" packaging allows for better production yields
and thermal performance while offering more flexibility in CPU and
GPU combinations.

Apple has dubbed this its new "Fusion Architecture" and it describes
it thusly:

"This innovative design combines two dies into a single system
on a chip (SoC), which includes a powerful CPU, scalable GPU,
Media Engine, unified memory controller, Neural Engine, and
Thunderbolt 5 capabilities. 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.1 Alongside these cores are
12 all-new performance cores, optimized for power-efficient,
multithreaded workloads."

Interestingly, this design change is likely the reason why code found
in Apple's OS 26.3 software contained no references matching the
M5 Pro; only the M5 Max and M5 Ultra were accounted for by the
conventional naming standards. Apple's Fusion Architecture has turned
the M5 Pro/Max into what is essentially a single chip under the hood
with the GPU configurations mixed and matched.

Apple doesn't come right out and say this, but it notes that both
chips share the same 18-core CPU architecture, with six
high-performance cores -�which it now calls "super cores" -�joined by
12 "performance" cores. Apple seems to have dropped the word
"efficiency" in describing its CPU cores with this generation, but it
notes that these that are "optimized for power-efficient,
multithreaded workloads."

In other words, Apple has effectively just moved the goalposts from
"performance" and "efficiency" to "high-performance" and
"performance." That said, there's likely more than just marketing
semantics at play; Apple's claim that these six "super cores" are the
world's fastest is a bold stance, even by its usual standards.

"M5 Pro and M5 Max are a monumental leap forward for Apple
silicon, leveraging our new Fusion Architecture to scale
the capabilities of Apple silicon while preserving its
core tenets of performance, power efficiency, and unified
memory architecture. Both chips underscore our relentless
pace of innovation, integrating the world's fastest CPU
cores, a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerators, a
faster Neural Engine, and high-bandwidth, high-capacity
memory - resulting in an unparalleled combination of
performance, efficiency, and incredible on-device AI
capabilities for MacBook Pro."

- Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of
Hardware Technologies

Those 18 CPU cores are joined by either 20 or 40 GPU cores, depending
on whether you opt for the M5 Pro or M5 Max; although Apple is still
offering lower-core configurations for its MacBooks (more on this in a
moment), these are likely just binned versions of each chip. The M5 Pro
supports up to 64 GB of unified memory with a memory bandwidth of up to
307 GB/s, while the M5 Max also doubles both of those numbers: up to
128 GB of unified memory at 614 GB/s. Both chips feature a 16-core
Neural Engine, plus a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core, Apple's
latest Media Engine with support for hardware-accelerated H.264 and
HEVC, AV1 decode, and ProRes encode and decode, Memory Integrity
Enforcement, and Thunderbolt 5.


The New MacBook Pro Models
As usual, Apple is leading the way into its high-end silicon with new
14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, but it's also still keeping
with the trend over the past four years of making the chips the only
real upgrade.

While Apple has much bigger plans in store for the MacBook Pro later
this year, the new M5 Pro/Max models are effectively identical to their
M4 Pro/Max predecessors and the M5 14-inch MacBook Pro that came out in
October in every way except for the chip inside.

The design, dimensions, weight, and colors are the same, as they mostly
have been since the M1 Pro/Max models arrived in late 2021, with only
the 2023 addition of Space Black marking a slight change from earlier
designs.

Of course, the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips pack in all the healthy
performance boosts we mentioned earlier, and it's telling that this
year Apple is not only making its usual comparisons against the
original M1 Pro/Max models to show the massive performance leaps, but
also factoring in how much things have improved year-over-year,
especially on the AI side.

For instance, while the M5 Pro is up to 7.8x faster than the M1 Pro at
AI image generation, it's still 3.7x faster than last year's M4 Pro.
Similar gains have also been seen with LLM processing, although the
improvements drop off when we leave the realm of Neural Engines and
Accelerators.

"MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max redefines what's possible
on a pro laptop, now up to 4x faster than the previous
generation. With Neural Accelerators in the GPU, the new
MacBook Pro enables professionals to run advanced LLMs on
device and unlock capabilities that no other laptop can do
- all while maintaining exceptional battery life. Combined
with even faster unified memory and storage, it empowers
users to take their work even further, unleashing new
possibilities and pushing the boundaries of what they can do."

- John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware
Engineering

Perhaps more significantly, the M5 Pro also raises the bar for RAM.
While the M4 Pro capped out at 48 GB of RAM, the M5 Pro can now be
configured with up to 64 GB.

That could save some folks from being forced up to the pricier M5 Max
just to get that extra memory, although you'll still need to go with
the top-end model if you want an 8 TB SSD, as the M5 Pro tops out at
4 TB. Interestingly, Apple has dropped the 1 TB configuration from the
M5 Max MacBook Pro, leaving all models now starting at 2 TB.

Both the M5 Pro and M5 Max models are also offered with two chip
configurations, with a "binned" 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU option for
the M5 Pro and an 18-core CPU and 32-core GPU option for the M5 Max.
These chips also offer different memory configurations. Here's a quick
rundown of the memory and storage configurations.

Model / Chip RAM Storage

M5 (10 CPU / 10 GPU) 16 / 24 / 32 GB 1 / 2 / 4 TB
M5 Pro (15 CPU / 16 GPU) 24 / 48 GB 1 / 2 / 4 TB
M5 Pro (18 CPU / 20 GPU) 24 / 48 / 64 GB 1 / 2 / 4 TB

M5 Max (18 CPU / 32 GPU) 36 GB 2 / 4 / 8 TB
M5 Max (18 CPU / 40 GPU) 48 / 64 / 128 GB 2 / 4 / 8 TB

As you can see from the table above, Apple is largely repeating last
year's M4 Pro/Max RAM and storage tiers, including the oddball binned
M5 Max, which remains available in a single 36 GB RAM configuration.

Last year, the M4 Pro was the sweet spot in the lineup, and we suspect
that will prove even more true for the M5 Pro, which now features an
identical set of CPU cores to the M5 Max, making the highest-end chip
relevant only for those who need insane amounts of GPU power or RAM.



<https://www.idropnews.com/news/apple-m5-pro-max-macbook-pro-launch-2026/260587/>





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