Apple adds M5 Pro and M5 Max chips to MacBook Pro with faster memory

In short: Apple’s March 2026 MacBook Pro updates add M5 Pro and M5 Max chips that get faster in part by moving data around the chip more quickly.

What happened

Apple introduced the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips in new MacBook Pro models in March 2026. The company says the upgrades come from design changes and faster “unified memory bandwidth,” which is how quickly the chip can read and write from a shared pool of memory (like having a wider highway so more cars can pass at once).

Apple started this M5 chip family earlier, with the base M5 launching in October 2025 in devices like the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple said the base M5 raised unified memory bandwidth by nearly 30% compared to the M4, reaching 153 GB/s. The company linked this to running larger AI models directly on the device, instead of sending work to the cloud.

With M5 Pro and M5 Max, Apple says bandwidth goes even higher to support bigger chip designs. Apple lists up to an 18-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU, plus “Neural” hardware aimed at AI tasks. Apple also claims up to 30% faster multi-threaded performance than the prior M4 Pro and M4 Max, and large gains for AI work done on the GPU.

Apple also points to 35% to 45% better ray tracing and graphics performance compared to M4, and up to double SSD speeds in these MacBook Pros, reaching up to 14.5 GB/s. Apple did not share new memory capacity limits, but it did mention base storage increases to 1TB on M5 Pro models and 2TB on M5 Max models.

Why it matters

For many people, faster memory and storage can mean snappier performance in demanding apps, like video editing, 3D work, and running AI tools locally. It is similar to upgrading both the roads and the warehouse, data can move faster and more work can happen without waiting.

Source: Arstechnica