Apple quietly released its latest M5 processor this month, and it is used in MacBook Pro 14-inch, iPad Pro and VisionPro 2. I originally thought that Apple was acting so low-key because the M5 was only a minor update compared to the M4. Unexpectedly, after the recent evaluation of the M5 MacBook Pro was released, it was found that not only the CPU performance could be stronger, but the GPU performance has also increased by more than 30%. In this era when the process dividend is about to be exhausted, it has once again delivered unparalleled performance.
Although the CPU performance of M5 is not much improved compared to M4, it still has a single-core performance improvement of 9% and multi-core performance improvement of 16%. Taking Cinebench R23, which is often used in the industry to test CPU performance, as an example, the M5's single-core score even exceeded 2,500 points. Looking at the PC processor industry, even the desktop processor 285K, which is recognized as having the strongest single-core performance, can only lag behind. Multi-core performance is limited by the small scale of its own CPU, and it is still unable to face opponents from the x86 camp. But the M5 is just the beginning. There will be two larger big brothers in the future, the M5 Pro and the M5 Max. It is exciting to see how far the multi-core performance will grow.
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However, just like the A19 series processors used in mobile phones, what is really exciting about the new M5 is the performance of its GPU. Although the surface specifications are still the same as the M4 with 10 cores and 1280 ALUs, thanks to architectural improvements and the addition of neural network accelerators similar to NVIDIA Tensor Core, the M5 GPU can not only provide more than 30% performance improvement compared to the previous generation, but also improve performance in ray tracing (Ray). The performance of the Tracing part is the same as that of the A19, with a performance improvement of nearly 50%. This kind of light tracing performance has actually surpassed some low-end NVIDIA mobile GPUs such as the RTX 3050 Ti, and the watt consumption is only half, which is also incredible.
Therefore, media reviews can also see that the performance of M5 in various productivity applications has been significantly improved. Taking the industry's well-known open source 3D rendering tool Blender as an example, the rendering capabilities of the M5 GPU have even improved by more than 80% compared to the M4 in some scenes, which is quite astonishing.
CPU performance is limited, focus on GPUSince the performance improvement of the M5 GPU is so obvious, perhaps consumers can expect more from its gaming capabilities, and this is indeed the case from the evaluation results. Take the classic 3A masterpiece Cyberpunk 2077, which has just launched on Apple's M series chips, as an example. M5 can provide up to 33% of game frames, and is almost catching up with NVIDIA's low-end GPUs. The media also found that even when running games that require translation, the M5 is much more stable than the previous generation. There is no longer an inexplicable frame rate drop, making the MacBook a not too bad gaming platform.
In fact, if you look closely at the chips recently launched by various companies, it is not difficult to see that the performance increase of the CPU is becoming increasingly limited, so each company has turned its focus to GPUs that can more easily obtain significant performance improvements through stack specifications, such as Apple's A19 or MediaTek's Dimensity 9500. This situation can also be seen on the M5. But the most valuable thing about M5 is that not only has it made great gains in GPU performance, but it can also continue to advance in the CPU part, providing top-level performance that no one can match in today's personal computer processors. I am also looking forward to what kind of amazing multi-core performance the M5 Pro and M5 Max can provide in the future, and what kind of weapons Nova Lake and Zen 6 in the x86 camp can come up with to meet the challenge.
Further reading: A brief talk about XBOX handheld console: It is not XBOX Intel releases XeSS 3 multi-frame generation technology, AMD internal display is in big trouble Panther Lake is gradually emerging. Can Intel make a desperate counterattack? A brief discussion of iPhone 17 Pro: Phone Pro or User Pro? Once again, iPhone only has Apple Silicon left