Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max with new Fusion architecture and supercores are here
Apple continues its eventful announcement week with the highly anticipated new M5 Pro and M5 Max chipsets, which will premiere in the new Apple MacBook Pro 14- and 16-inch models.
Both the Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max utilize Apple’s brand-new Fusion architecture, which combines two third-generation 3-nanometer chips through advanced packaging. The two chips feature a new 18-core CPU (used in both the M5 Pro and Max), a scalable GPU, a Media Engine, a unified memory controller, a Neural Engine, and Thunderbolt 5 support.
Both the Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max divide their 18 cores into 6 super cores and 12 brand-new performance cores. While the names sound new, they correspond to the previous performance/efficiency cores. It’s worth noting that the Pro and Max share the same CPU core configuration. The M4 Pro and M4 Max, however, differ: the Pro has a total of 14 cores (10 performance and 4 efficiency cores), while the Max is equipped with 16 cores (6 performance and 10 efficiency cores).
Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max with improved branch prediction
Apple states that its new supercore is industry-leading and offers the fastest single-threaded performance, made possible by increased bandwidth, a new cache hierarchy, and improved branch prediction. The new performance cores are optimized for better energy efficiency and multithreaded performance in professional applications. Apple claims that the new CPU delivers up to a 40% performance increase.
In terms of graphics performance, the Apple M5 Pro is equipped with a 20-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine, while the M5 Max can be configured with a 32-core GPU or a 40-core GPU.
Each graphics core features a neural engine and increased uniform memory bandwidth. According to Apple, the new GPU delivers four times the peak AI performance of the M4 Pro and M4 Max. The new M5 Pro/Max GPU also offers 35% better ray tracing performance. The 16-core Neural Engine is also faster thanks to the increased memory bandwidth.
The Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max notebooks can be pre-ordered starting tomorrow, March 4th, in the MacBook Pro 14 and Pro 16 models.
