California, October 15: Apple on Tuesday unveiled its new M5 chip, calling it the company’s “next big leap in AI performance” for Apple silicon. The M5 delivers more than four times the GPU compute performance for AI compared to its predecessor, the M4, and brings upgrades across nearly every aspect of Apple’s chip architecture.
Built on Apple’s third-generation 3-nanometer technology, the M5 features a 10-core GPU architecture with a dedicated Neural Accelerator in each core, designed to dramatically boost AI and graphics workloads. The chip also integrates the world’s fastest performance core, a more powerful CPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and a 30 percent increase in unified memory bandwidth to 153GB/s.
According to Apple, these advancements will power the next generation of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro, all of which are now available for pre-order.
“M5 ushers in the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. “With Neural Accelerators built into each GPU core, M5 delivers a huge boost to AI workloads along with faster graphics, a faster Neural Engine, and higher memory bandwidth.”
The new GPU is optimized for AI-driven workloads and features third-generation ray tracing for enhanced realism in graphics-heavy applications. Apple says this combination provides up to 45 percent higher graphics performance than the M4 and as much as 2.5 times faster performance than the original M1.
The M5 also enhances Apple’s on-device AI ecosystem, powering tools such as Apple Intelligence, Image Playground, and spatial photo features on Apple Vision Pro. Its faster Neural Engine enables smoother real-time AI generation, from transforming photos into 3D scenes to running large language models locally.
With its expanded unified memory bandwidth, users can now run larger AI models directly on-device, boosting multitasking and content creation performance in apps like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Photoshop.
Apple said the chip’s power efficiency will also contribute to its broader Apple 2030 carbon neutrality goal, helping reduce the overall energy consumption of its new devices.
The M5-equipped MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro are available for pre-order starting today.