Apple Unveils MacBook Pro Featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips With New Fusion Architecture
[[{“value”:”Apple today announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, both built on a new Fusion Architecture that bonds two third-generation 3nm dies into a single chip using advanced packaging.
The Fusion Architecture is a first for Apple silicon, since previous chips used a single-die design. The two bonded dies house the CPU, GPU, Media Engine, Neural Engine, unified memory controller, and Thunderbolt 5 capabilities together.
Both chips feature an 18-core CPU – up from the 14-core and 16-core designs of the M4 Pro and M4 Max, respectively. The CPU now includes six “super cores” (Apple’s new branding for its highest-performance cores) alongside 12 efficiency-focused performance cores. Apple claims up to 30 percent faster multithreaded performance over the M4 generation, and up to 2.5x faster than M1 Pro and M1 Max.
M5 Pro features up to 20 GPU cores, while M5 Max doubles that to 40. Each GPU core now includes a Neural Accelerator, which Apple says delivers over 4x the peak AI compute compared to M4 Pro and M4 Max. Graphics performance is up to 20 percent faster, with ray-tracing workloads seeing up to 35 percent improvement.
Memory gets a bump too. M5 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory (up from 48GB on M4 Pro), with bandwidth reaching 307GB/s. M5 Max retains its 128GB ceiling but raises bandwidth to 614GB/s.
Other additions include a 16-core Neural Engine with a faster memory connection that Apple says speeds up on-device Apple Intelligence tasks, and an updated Media Engine that adds hardware-accelerated AV1 decode alongside existing H.264, HEVC, and ProRes support. There’s also Memory Integrity Enforcement – an always-on memory safety feature Apple calls an industry first.
Thunderbolt 5 carries over from the M4 generation, but now each port gets its own dedicated controller on the chip itself, allowing them to run at full bandwidth independently.
“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,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “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.”
The new MacBook Pro models are available for pre-order starting tomorrow, March 4, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 11.
This article, “Apple Unveils MacBook Pro Featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips With New Fusion Architecture” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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