The new Apple-designed silicon improves performance, especially for AI, across the company's Pro laptops, tablets and the Apple Vision Pro XR headset.
Apple's new M5 chip offers improvements across the board, but especially for GPU and NPU performance.Apple has made it a bit of a tradition to refresh its PCs in the fall, usually with the latest Apple silicon chips.
Last year, Apple started with the iPad Pro and quickly followed with the MacBook Pro. This year, Apple dropped both at the same time along with the Vision Pro headset, which I believe shows Apple’s continued commitment to the XR space at a crucial time. As many expected, Apple put its new M5 processor at the core of the new devices, reflecting its annual cadence with the M-series of silicon. Although the new M5 saw double-digit improvements in its CPU’s performance, the star of the show was its new GPU. Apple really leaned into GPU performance improvements with the new M5, including a dedicated neural accelerator in each GPU core.Placing dedicated neural accelerators in each of the M5’s 10 GPU cores is an interesting shift for Apple because it offloads some of the work from processor’s “Neural Engine” . By adding neural accelerators to the GPU, Apple is not only increasing the overall AI performance of the M-Series silicon but also changing the scale of that performance based on the GPU configuration. In the M4 series, for example, you get an 8- or 10-core GPU in the base M4, a 16- to 20-core GPU in the M4 Pro and 32 to 40 GPU cores in the M4 Max. If the full M5 series follows this same model , there’s a scenario where an M5 Max could theoretically have four times the GPU AI compute horsepower as the M5, giving it considerably more resources to handle bigger AI workloads. Because Apple’s Metal framework will obfuscate where each workload will go, most people will be completely unaware of when the GPU takes on a task. But I believe that adding more AI performance in the GPU will empower more concurrent AI workloads and allow them to be balanced across different types of cores. While some people might see this as a win for GPU-accelerated AI , Apple’s computing model is far more about saving power than it is about targeting the GPU specifically. It also enables people who need more AI compute to scale their platform based on their needs.Apple claims that the new GPU’s peak compute capability is 4x faster than the M4 and more than 6x better than the M1 for AI. Apple also makes very relevant comparisons to the M5’s new GPU for graphics as well, claiming up to 30% faster performance than the M4 and 250% faster compared to the M1. Apple is also claiming major improvements to ray-tracing performance with its third-generation ray-tracing engine, providing up to a 45% performance lift in ray-traced games. In addition to a faster CPU and GPU, Apple also upgraded the M5’s Neural Engine, which remains a 16-core design. Apple claims the new engine is faster than the last generation, but there are no numbers yet that detail exactly how much. Apple does say that Apple Intelligence is faster thanks to the enhanced neural engine, as are AI features on the Vision Pro — like my favorite feature, 2-D to 3-D photo conversion. Thanks to the new M5’s GPU, the Vision Pro renders 10% more pixels and enables refresh rates to be bumped up to 120 hertz .The new M5 Vision Pro remains mostly the same design as the original version but gets a significant performance boost by going from the M2 to the M5. The upgrade also improves battery life from 2.5 to 3 hours while increasing things like refresh rate and resolution. Apple also improved the comfort of the headset with a dual-knit band, something that a lot of people said the company should have had at launch. This new dual-knit band is also for sale separately and is compatible with the original Vision Pro for $99. Unfortunately, as of this writing, the band is back-ordered into early December. While I haven’t tried it yet, I suspect the new headband will significantly improve most people’s problems with the Vision Pro because it also adds counterweights to offset some of the design’s front-heaviness, relieving neck strain during prolonged use. The new band is effectively responsible for the 150g weight increase for the M5-based model. This should also make the Vision Pro even more attractive for enterprises that have been looking at the headset for collaboration and visualization but also struggled with the device’s comfort. I believe that Apple updating the Vision Pro with the M5 not only demonstrates the company’s commitment to XR, but also shows that it wants to maintain its leadership position as the premium XR platform. I was a bit disappointed by the choice of an M2 in the original Vision Pro considering that the M3 was already fully in-market; adding an M5 solves that problem and also enables developers to work with considerably more GPU horsepower for visuals and graphical fidelity. Looking at GPU rendering benchmarks like Blender, the M5’s GPU is 5x faster than the M2. Cinebench only shows a 3x improvement, but you get the point: it’s a day-and-night difference in GPU performance, not to mention AI. That said, I can’t imagine very many original Vision Pro owners, who paid $3,500 for their headset, are necessarily jumping at the opportunity to spend another $3,500. I do wish that Apple had some kind of trade-in program like it has with most of its products, especially given the Vision Pro’s high price tag. I expect buyers will be people who held off on the original model or people who really think the M5 is going to enable new use cases.The iPad Pro, which is still Apple’s most confusing platform, seems to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new M5, especially with iPadOS 26 starting to emulate more of a productivity environment. This is something that Apple has avoided for years with iPadOS for fear of cannibalizing MacBook sales, but I believe that the iPad Pro can deliver a good user experience for people wanting to be highly mobile and productive. I also think that the iPad Pro is Apple’s most portable computing platform with its touch screen and 5G modem, which the MacBook line still lacks. While I do hope that Apple will eventually enable touch screens and 5G connectivity on MacBooks, the iPad is the best place to get that experience right now, and with a proper keyboard it can be pretty good. The iPad Pro is extremely thin; with an M5 processor, there are going to be more people than ever before who consider it for productivity. The MacBook Pro gets the M5 treatment, but it’s important to remember that the M5 is still the entry-level Apple silicon chip and that Apple still sells the M4 Pro and M4 Max as higher-performance SKUs until the M5 Pro and M5 Max launch. The M5 is currently limited to 32GB of RAM, while the M4 Pro hits 48GB and the M4 Max reaches 128GB. That means if you’re using your Mac for heavier workloads, you probably won’t want the M5 MacBook but will want to wait for the M5 Pro or M5 Max when those become available. I will be very interested to see what those new chips’ AI performance will be compared to the M5 and the M4 Pro/Max.The new M5 shows that Apple continues to push the pedal on performance and AI, even if Apple Intelligence is still very much a work in progress. I think Apple’s developers have a good chance to take advantage of the additional AI compute inside the GPU. And while many of the changes to the new M5-based products have been fairly minor, I do think the Vision Pro needed it the most. While the Vision Pro looks unchanged to most people, the new strap, massive compute upgrade and improved battery life are all big enough changes to justify an upgrade. Moor Insights & Strategy provides or has provided paid services to technology companies, like all tech industry research and analyst firms. These services include research, analysis, advising, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking and video and speaking sponsorships. Moor Insights & Strategy does not have a paid business relationship with any company mentioned in this article.
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