Apple recently introduced the new generation of MacBook Pro computers with Apple M5 Pro and Apple M5 Max processors, and the first independent tests show impressive graphics performance. The most powerful version of the M5 Max chip reaches the performance level of Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile mobile graphics.
The results show that Apple has significantly improved integrated graphics, further blurring the line between integrated and discrete GPU solutions in laptops.
M5 Max GPU equals RTX 5070 Mobile graphics
The new generation of Apple processors is made in the third generation of the 3 nm production process of TSMC. With the M5 series, Apple also changed the chip design, introducing a two-part tile (chiplet) architecture in which the CPU and GPU modules are physically separated and later integrated into one package.
The M5 Pro comes in versions with 16 or 20 GPU cores, while the M5 Max offers configurations with 32 or even 40 GPU cores. The tested model with 40 GPU cores showed performance very close to RTX 5070 Mobile graphics.
In the 3DMark Steel Nomad M5 Max test, it even slightly outperformed the RTX 5070 Mobile, while in other tests the difference is minimal. Compared to the previous generation Apple M4 Max, the new GPU delivers about 8% better results in this test.
In the Geekbench Metal and OpenCL tests, the advantage of the new generation is even more pronounced and amounts to between 20% and 26%.
M5 Pro still in the middle GPU segment
A weaker model, the Apple M5 Pro with 20 GPU cores offers performance between the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile and GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile versions.
In synthetic tests, this GPU is even about 15% faster than the integrated Radeon 8060S graphics from the AMD Strix Halo platform, although in some games AMD still has an advantage.
In games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the M5 Max shows an improvement of 8 to 24% compared to the previous generation, while the results compared to RTX 5070 Mobile graphics differ from game to game.
It is important to note that these results were obtained on the 14-inch MacBook Pro model, which cannot maintain the maximum consumption of 72 W for a long time due to cooling limitations. After a short time, the consumption drops to around 44 W, which means that the larger 16-inch model could show even better performance.
Overall, the M5 Pro and M5 Max GPU bring the expected generational performance improvement of around 20 to 30%, but more importantly confirm the trend that Apple integrated graphics are increasingly entering the territory of discrete GPU solutions in laptops, Notebookcheck analyzes.