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PRESS RELEASE March 3, 2026
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today announced M5 Pro and M5 Max, the world’s most advanced chips for pro laptops, powering the new MacBook Pro. The chips are built using a new Apple-designed Fusion Architecture. 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. Collectively, the CPU significantly boosts performance by up to 30 percent for pro workloads.2 The GPU scales up the next-generation architecture introduced in M5 to an up-to-40-core GPU. With a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core and higher unified memory bandwidth, M5 Pro and M5 Max are over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation.2 The GPU substantially increases graphics capabilities — now up to 35 percent for apps using ray tracing than M4 Pro and M4 Max — enhancing advanced visual effects and 3D rendering.2 With M5 Pro and M5 Max, the new MacBook Pro is the ultimate powerhouse for pros and is available for pre-order starting tomorrow, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 11.
“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.”

Advanced Technologies Across M5 Pro and M5 Max

  • A faster 16-core Neural Engine with a higher bandwidth connection to memory to accelerate on-device AI features and Apple Intelligence.3
  • Apple’s latest Media Engine with support for hardware-accelerated H.264 and HEVC, AV1 decode, and ProRes encode and decode engines.
  • Support for Memory Integrity Enforcement — an industry-first, always-on memory safety protection that does not compromise device performance.
  • Thunderbolt 5 ports, each supported by its own custom-designed controller directly on the chip — making this the industry’s most capable implementation of Thunderbolt 5.

Apple Silicon and the Environment

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  1. Testing was conducted by Apple in February 2026 using shipping competitive systems and select industry-standard benchmarks.
  2. Testing was conducted by Apple in February 2026 using preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, and 128GB of unified memory; and preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M5 Pro, 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, and 64GB of unified memory; as well as production 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M4 Max, 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, and 128GB of unified memory; production 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M4 Pro, 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, and 48GB of unified memory; production 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Max, 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 64GB of unified memory; and production 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Pro, 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, and 32GB of unified memory. Performance measured using select industry‑standard benchmarks. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro. See apple.com/macbook-pro for more information.
  3. Apple Intelligence is available in beta with support for these languages: English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Japanese, and Korean. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages. For feature and language availability and system requirements, see support.apple.com/en-us/121115.