Apple just dropped a fresh wave of Mac updates, and while the designs stay familiar, the real story is under the hood. The company has officially upgraded its laptops with the new M5 family of chips, pushing harder into on-device AI and pro performance.
The spotlight is on the MacBook Pro, which now ships with the new M5 Pro and M5 Max silicon. Apple’s latest chips use a new Fusion architecture that combines two 3nm dies into a single SoC, aimed at boosting both speed and efficiency.
Performance is clearly the headline. The M5 Pro can scale up to an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU, while the M5 Max stretches to a massive 40-core GPU and up to 128GB unified memory for heavy workloads like 3D rendering and AI research.
Apple is also leaning hard into AI, claiming up to 4× faster AI performance compared to earlier generations.
Storage gets a quiet but meaningful bump too. The new MacBook Pro now starts with 1TB standard storage (and 2TB on M5 Max models), alongside SSD speeds reaching up to 14.5GB/s. Battery life is rated at up to 24 hours, keeping Apple competitive on endurance.
Meanwhile, the MacBook Air also joins the M5 era. It now ships with the base M5 chip and importantly 512GB standard storage, double the previous generation. Prices start at $1,099 for the 13-inch and $1,299 for the 15-inch models.
Preorders for the new Macs opened March 4, with availability starting March 11.
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