This marks the midpoint of Apple’s new product announcements scheduled for the week, focusing on Apple silicon, specifically the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The new chips are debuting in an updated MacBook Pro generation — the 14-inch and 16-inch models. Alongside these, the popular MacBook Air is receiving a generational refresh with the base M5 chip. Apple has also unveiled the next iterations of the Studio Display and Studio Display XDR. Earlier this week, Apple announced the new iPhone 17e and the iPad Air with M4.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max chips introduce what the tech giant calls Fusion Architecture, which connects two dies into a single System on a Chip, or SoC. This brings together two third-generation 3-nanometre dies with high bandwidth and low latency, along with a powerful new CPU, a scalable graphics chip, a Neural Engine, and unified memory. The M5 Pro and M5 Max feature certain architectural similarities, such as an 18-core CPU with six “super cores” and 12 all-new performance cores, albeit in different states of tune.
Apple said the M5 Pro chip features an up-to-18-core CPU with an up-to-20-core GPU, including a Neural Accelerator in each core for AI compute. With four additional CPU cores compared to the M4 Pro, performance for professional workloads sees an up-to-30% boost. The M5 Max features an up-to-40-core GPU, supporting up to 128GB of unified memory, with a CPU architecture that is up to 15% faster than the M4 Max.
“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 Apple MacBook Air with M5 (not to be confused with the M5 Pro or M5 Max) succeeds the M4 powered version, with a few more generational hardware improvements — double the starting storage capacity of 512GB with faster SSD performance, Apple’s N1 wireless chip with Wi-Fi 7 support, and the chip’s focus that extends across workflows. The MacBook Air will be available in 13-inch and 15-inch models, with headline performance improvements focused on 4x faster AI compute compared with the M4, 1.9x faster AI video enhancement, and 2x faster performance across typically demanding apps. That, alongside a claimed up to 18 hours of battery life.
“The new MacBook Air with M5 brings incredible performance and even more capability to the world’s most popular laptop,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. “With M5, MacBook Air powers through a wide range of tasks, from everyday productivity to creative workloads, and is even faster for AI. Now featuring double the starting storage, as well as Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, in a sleek and durable design with long battery life, MacBook Air is the perfect laptop for anyone who values the unrivaled combination of performance and portability.”
Apple said the 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 will be priced ₹1,19,900 onwards while the 15-inch MacBook Air with M5 will cost ₹1,44,900 onwards.
Pre-orders in India begin on March 4, with general availability starting March 11.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro now offer the choice of the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, alongside the already available M5 option. Here too, base storage has been doubled, with the M5 Pro machines configured with at least 1TB storage. The M5 Max option arrives with at least 2TB storage — much like the MacBook Air with M5’s faster SSD upgrade, the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max will also get 2x faster SSD. Apple insisted this combination would deliver up to 4x AI performance compared to the previous generation chips. Apple said these iterations of the MacBook Pro deliver up to 24 hours of battery life.
In India, the 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at ₹2,49,900 while the iterations with the M5 Max chip will cost ₹3,99,900 onwards. The 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro is priced ₹2,99,900 while the same screen size with the M5 Max chip will start at ₹4,29,900.
