Apple's new M5 Pro, M5 Max: rumored with separate CPU, GPU blocks for unique SoC configurations

Apple will reportedly use a new design for its M5 Pro and M5 Max chips: separate CPU and GPU core counts, for more unique configurations.

Apple's new M5 Pro, M5 Max: rumored with separate CPU, GPU blocks for unique SoC configurations
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Gaming Editor
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2 minutes & 45 seconds read time
TL;DR: Apple's upcoming M5 Pro and M5 Max processors feature a new chip design separating CPU and GPU blocks, enabling customizable core configurations. Built on TSMC's advanced 3nm N3P process with SoIC-MH packaging, these chips offer improved performance, efficiency, and heat management, targeting high-end MacBook Pro and AI server markets.

Apple's new M5 series processors are going to be an interesting change from the current-gen M4, with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips to have a new chip design that separates the CPU and GPU blocks.

This is particularly useful for Apple as it can offer a chip with less CPU cores but maxed-out GPU cores, or vice versa, maxed-out CPU cores and less GPU cores. Apple looks to be using TSMC's new SoIC-MH advanced packaging, as well as fabbing its new M5 series processors on TSMC's new 3nm "N3P" process node, just like its new A19 and A19 Pro chips.

The regular M5 chip won't be using the new SoIC-MH advanced packaging, but the higher-end M5 Pro and M5 Max processors would be using it.

TSMC's new SoIC-MH stands for "Small Outline Integrated Circuit Molding-Horizontal" and offers a decent amount of features:

  • Smaller and lighter than other packages, making them ideal for portable space-constrained machines like the MacBook Pro
  • Standardized design and compatibility lead to lowered manufacturing costs
  • Easier to assemble
  • Higher component density results in more components added to a smaller space, leading to better functionality
  • Minimize capacitance, resulting in better performance and signal integrity
  • Improved heat transfer thanks to an exposed pad, allowing the M5 Pro and M5 Max to deliver better sustained performance

YouTuber Vadim Yuryev posted on X saying that the new M5 Pro and M5 Max would have a new chip design that separates the CPU and GPU blocks, which allows for customers to mix and match core counts (for example: maxed-out GPU with base CPU). He adds that the new M5 chip would NOT be getting any of this new chip tech/design language, and that this explains why the M5 Pro and M5 Max have been delayed into 2026.

Apple could offer new customization services to its MacBook Pro laptops, where customers could tweak their M5 Pro and M5 Max with more CPU cores if that's what they need, or if they were gaming, add in a bunch of GPU cores and slightly less CPU cores to their M5 Pro/Max processors.