Apple M5 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro: More performance, more storage, and new chips

Apple's M5 MacBook Air and M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro bring major performance gains, doubled storage, and a new Fusion Architecture chip design for pro users.

Apple has announced new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models powered by the latest M5 generation of Apple silicon. Both lines are available to pre-order from March 4, with availability from March 11.

The new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips

Before getting to the laptops, it's worth understanding what the new M5s actually bring to the table, since the architecture flows through the entire line. 

M5 is built on TSMC's third-generation 3 nm process and introduces what Apple calls a "super core" — its highest-performance CPU core design, now carrying that name consistently across all M5-based products. The chip features a 10-core CPU in base configuration and a next-generation GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core.

That last detail is the key architectural change: by embedding AI acceleration directly into every GPU core rather than relying solely on the Neural Engine, Apple says it has increased peak AI compute. The result, Apple claims with its favorite comparison benchmarks, is up to 4x faster AI task performance versus M4, and up to 9.5x versus M1.

These are big gains. Memory bandwidth also steps up, with M5 delivering 153 GB/s of unified memory bandwidth — a 28% improvement over M4. The SSD controller is new too, with 2x faster read/write speeds than the previous generation.

M5 Pro and M5 Max scale this architecture further using Fusion Architecture (two dies on a single SoC), with higher core counts, more memory bandwidth, and larger unified memory ceilings. But it's worth noting that the foundational GPU and Neural Accelerator design is consistent across the family.

MacBook Air with M5

We're going to rattle through this one briefly ahead of the launch of what now looks to be named the MacBook Neo later today. The new 2026 MacBook Air gets the straightforward upgrade treatment: M5 chip inside, double the starting storage (now 512 GB, configurable up to 4 TB), and Apple's new N1 wireless chip bringing WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6. The rest of the package (fanless design, up to 18 hours of battery, 12 MP Center Stage camera, Thunderbolt 4) carries over from the previous generation.

Pricing

The 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 starts at $1099, and the 15-inch at $1299. This is a $100 increase over the M4 models, which given inflation, tariffs, memory prices, and the fact that the new base level storage is now 512 GB, qualifies as a bit of an achievement. Both come in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver.

MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

The MacBook Pro was already available in M5, and now gets an upgrade to the Pro and Max models. Both the M5 Pro and M5 Max are built using Fusion Architecture, which combines two third-generation 3 nm dies into a single SoC using advanced packaging. This delivers high bandwidth and low latency between the two dies, and the sort of performance improvements we talked about in the previous section.

The new 18-core CPU includes six super cores and 12 all-new performance cores optimized for multithreaded pro workloads. Apple claims up to 30% faster CPU performance compared to M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 2.5x higher multithreaded performance versus M1 Pro and M1 Max.

GPU performance gets a significant jump: M5 Pro features up to a 20-core GPU, M5 Max up to 40 cores, both with Neural Accelerators in each core. Apple claims over 4x peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation. 

Apple figures suggest the M5 Max provides 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.

Memory bandwidth is also up: M5 Pro supports up to 64 GB of unified memory at 307 GB/s, while M5 Max goes to 128 GB at 614 GB/s. On storage, the MacBook Pro now starts at 1 TB for M5 Pro configurations and 2 TB for M5 Max, with SSD speeds reaching up to 14.5 GB/s — up to 2x faster than the previous generation.

Connectivity gets an upgrade too: three Thunderbolt 5 ports, each with its own dedicated controller on-chip. HDMI supports up to 8K output; M5 Pro can drive up to two external displays, M5 Max up to four.

Battery life now sits at up to 24 hours, 13 hours more than Intel-era MacBook Pros.

One under-the-radar addition: Memory Integrity Enforcement, which Apple describes as an industry-first. This is always-on memory safety protection that Apple says doesn't compromise performance. It's the kind of feature that rarely makes headlines but matters for enterprise and security-conscious deployments.

Pricing

Again there is a price rise over the previous generation largely to account for the new storage baseline, the Pro adding $200 and the Max adding $400. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2199; the 16-inch at $2699. With M5 Max, those prices rise to $3599 and $3899 respectively. A base 14-inch MacBook Pro with the standard M5 chip is also available at $1699.

For M1-era MacBook Pro users still waiting for a reason to upgrade, this is probably around the time to start thinking seriously about making the leap.