Apple announces new MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, raises MacBook starting prices

Apple's big week continues as the company dropped a slew of new products on Tuesday. 

The biggest release? A new MacBook Pro with Apple's newest and most powerful chipsets, the M5 Pro and M5 Max.

The MacBook Pro with the M5 chip came out back in October, so the release of the M5 Pro and M5 Max was long overdue based on Apple's previous release cycles with its in-house Silicon chipset. Mashable gave the MacBook Pro M5 a stellar review, and these long-awaited MacBook Pros with the M5 Pro and M5 Max are basically just more powerful versions of that device for professional users with advanced computing needs.

MacBooks are getting more expensive

Before getting into the specs of these premium laptops, the first thing we should mention is that Apple has surprisingly raised MacBook Pro prices across the board. We're not just talking about the new MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips being more expensive than their predecessors with equivalent silicon. Today, Apple has also effectively raised the starting price of the MacBook Pro M5 that was released in October.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 previously had a starting price of $1,599. Apple has raised the price by $100, bringing the new starting price to $1,699. Thankfully, Apple isn't asking consumers to just pay more for the same device. Apple has done away with the 512GB of storage option, making 1TB of storage the new base model. So, while Apple fans have to pay $100 more for a MacBook Pro, they're now getting double the storage.

Now, as for the newest members of the MacBook Pro family, the 14-inch M5 Pro starts at $2,199, which is $200 more than its M4 Pro predecessor, and comes with a 15-core CPU and a 16-core GPU. The 16-inch M5 Pro starts at $2,699, also $200 more than its M4 Pro predecessor, and comes with an 18-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. Both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro M5 Pros come with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage in their base models.

By far the most expensive models are the ultra-powerful MacBook Pros with the M5 Max chipset. The 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 Max starts at $3,599, and the 16-inch M5 Max starts at a whopping $3,899. Both base models come with an 18-core CPU and a 32-core GPU and include 36GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max: Specs and performance upgrades

Credit: Apple

According to Apple, the new MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max altogether provide up to four times the AI performance compared to the equivalent M4 chipsets and up to eight times the AI performance when compared to the M1 chips, Apple's first Silicon chipset, which came out in 2020.

The new MacBook Pros also include Apple's wireless networking chip called N1, which brings improved performance and reliability for wireless connections over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Apple says that the new MacBook Pros also boast two times faster SSD performance and up to 24 hours of battery life.

Now, as for the M5 Pro and M5 Max specific upgrades, users will see huge performance boosts in AI processing, video editing, 3D modeling, gaming, and more.

Apple says 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M5 Pro will see:

• Up to 7.8x faster AI image generation performance when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and up to 3.7x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Pro. 

• Up to 6.9x faster LLM prompt processing when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and up to 3.9x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Pro. 

• Up to 5.2x faster 3D rendering in Maxon Redshift when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and up to 1.4x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Pro. 

• Up to 1.6x faster gaming performance with ray tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition when compared to MacBook Pro with M4 Pro.

As for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M5 Max chip, Apple says that users will see:

• Up to 8x faster AI image generation performance when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Max and up to 3.8x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Max. 

• Up to 6.7x faster LLM prompt processing when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Max and up to 4x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Max. 

• Up to 5.4x faster video effects rendering performance in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio when compared to MacBook Pro with M1 Max and up to 3x faster than MacBook Pro with M4 Max. 

• Up to 3.5x faster AI video-enhancing performance in Topaz Video when compared to MacBook Pro with M4 Max.

Along with Tuesday's MacBook Pro announcements, Apple also unveiled a new MacBook Air with the M5 chipset and a new Apple Studio Display.