M5 MacBook Pro vs M4: 3 big upgrades you need to know about

The M5 MacBook Pro is official — available to preorder now for $1,599 and launching Wednesday, October 22. And looking at Apple’s shiny new laptop, I’d sympathize with anyone who would struggle to tell which one is which.

That’s because in terms of design, display, webcam and ports, the new M5 MacBook Pro is exactly the same. It’s a utilitarian aesthetic that I love, but is starting to grow a little stale. However, there are some beefy upgrades going on here. It's all about the M5 chip with its faster CPU cores, more powerful GPU cores and especially that upgraded Neural Engine for AI tasks. So let’s break down the main differences.

M5 MacBook Pro vs M4 MacBook Pro: Specs

M5 performance gains

The M4 was (and still is) already a speed demon, but that hasn’t stopped the Cupertino crew from pushing the envelope even further. You’re getting a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU but with sizable performance increases.

According to Apple, multithreaded performance of those CPU cores is up 20% compared to the M4, which will be especially important for more complex multicore processing tasks.

On top of that, the unified memory bandwidth has been upped from 120GB/s to 153 GB/s. For those uninitiated, unified memory is similar to RAM but can be used across both the CPU and GPU as needed. So when that bandwidth is lifted up by this kind of a margin, you can expect better multitasking and faster loading times of larger files.

GPU goodness

Now let’s talk more specifically about that GPU, because this is probably going to be the most noticeable upgrade you see in the M5 MacBook Pro. First off, you’re getting 45% higher graphics performance, so you can expect to see rendering tasks go by much faster (thanks to that additional injection of the faster bandwidth).

But this will be significant for gaming too, and Apple’s paid attention to this too with their third generation ray tracing cores. These will be much more capable of casting realistic lighting, shadows and reflections in real-time 3D worlds.

Even more AI-ready

Apple Intelligence may be taking a while to really hit its stride, but the company’s ongoing march to offer a beast of a Neural Engine continues. You’ve got both a next-generation Neural Engine, and each GPU core is injected with a Neural Accelerator.

A lot of local AI work is reliant on GPU power, so to add an AI accelerator into each one makes sense. And the results speak for themselves, as Apple is touting 3.5x faster AI performance compared to M4. This is a crucial uplift when it comes to running local LLMs or generating AI imagery entirely on-device.

In other words, many AI tasks that used to rely on the cloud can now run locally. And for those who know how big LLMs can be, Apple now offers a version of the MacBook Pro with 4TB of storage, which also has 2x faster performance.

Should you upgrade?

Even though the M5 chip shows some real promise here, if you are on an M4 system, you don't need to upgrade. Leaks are pointing to a more significant overhaul to the design and display with the M6 MacBook Pro.

The bigger question here is if you're rocking an M1 MacBook Pro (shout-out if you are)! Because with 3.2x higher frame rates in games, 7.7x faster video-enhancing performance in Topaz and many more multiple uplifts, this would be a huge performance jump for you.

If you can hold on for 12 more months, something big is around the corner. If you need that horsepower now, you'll be really happy with the M5 model.

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