Apple's new M5 chip is official: up to 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 30% more GPU performance

Apple has just announced its new M5 processor, which has some big upgrades across the board for new MacBook Pro laptops, a new Vision Pro headset, and new M5 iPad Pro.

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The new Apple M5 processor features up to 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores, which might not sound like a lot, but they are much faster and more efficient than the previous-gen M4 chip. Apple's new M5 processor and its 10-core CPU configuration splits into 6 performance and 4 efficiency cores, just like the M4, but each of the cores has up to 15% more multi-threaded performance than the M4.

Apple's new M5 silicon also provides a bigger 30% upgrade in graphics performance, alongside a Neural Accelerator inside of each CPU and GPU core, Apple's new M5 processor is up to 4x faster in compute capabilities over the M4. Not bad for a single generation.

• Read more: Apple's next-gen M5 announcement is coming, fabbed on TSMC N3E process

On the memory bandwidth side of things, the new M5 chip hits 153GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which is 30% higher than the M4 with its 120GB/sec. Apple's new M5 processor also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, so there are RT performance upgrades we can expect to see, with Apple saying there's up to 45% more RT performance on the M5.

The Neural Engine keeps its 16-core configuration, handling AI tasks better than the M4, all while using less power. The Neural Engine inside of the Apple M5 processor will also work together with the Neural Accelerators inside of the CPU and GPU cores of the M5 chip, totally optimized for AI-related workloads.

Apple says that when using the upgraded M5 Vision Pro headset, users can transform 2D photos into spatial scenes inside of the Photos app, or when generating a Persona, the M5 will do all of this with more performance and greater power efficiency. The new M5 processor also increases performance for Apple Intelligence, with on-device AI tools like Image Playground enjoying additional performance.

Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, explains: "M5 ushers in the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon. With the introduction of Neural Accelerators in the GPU, M5 delivers a huge boost to AI workloads. Combined with a big increase in graphics performance, the world's fastest CPU core, a faster Neural Engine, and even higher unified memory bandwidth, M5 brings far more performance and capabilities to MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro".

Apple's new M5 processor is out now inside of new MacBook Pros, a newly-tweaked Vision Pro headset, and the new M5 iPad Pro.