Tech heads have taken to social media to air their views on the new chip and the price – and they didn’t hold back
Tech heads will constantly be keeping their eyes peeled on the latest drops from the likes of Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. The tech landscape is ever-changing, after all, and the big companies will always be looking to perform.
This week, Apple has become the latest to take “the next big leap,” specifically in AI performance, by announcing M5 – Apple’s next-generation system on a chip built for AI, “resulting in a faster, more efficient, and more capable chip for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro,” all of which are available for pre-order now.
M5 boasts a multitude of features including an improved 16-core Neural Engine, a powerful media engine, and a nearly 30 percent increase in unified memory bandwidth to 153GB/s, if you are into those numbers and figures.
However, the initial reaction has been mixed, with many questioning what is actually the difference between M5 and M4. Many enthusiasts have taken to social media to air their views, and one of them is Mrwhosetheboss.
The UK YouTuber described the update as “weird,” tweeting: “Apple’s just unveiled their new M5 chip, as part of their new 14 inch MacBook Pro… but it’s weird.
“They call it “next-generation speed”… but it sits below the M4 Pro and M4 Max (that they still sell).
“I feel like they should just wait till the M5 Pro and M5 Max are ready and then unveil them all together.”
Another Twitter account posted: “Apple had to compare the M5 against the M1 because if they did that with the M3 or M4, there would be zero difference.”
A third questioned: “Honestly the naming is getting so confusing lol… like how is m5 supposed to be “next gen” but slower than m4 pro??”
A fourth concluded: “Zero innovation, just marketing,” while a fifth said: “Apple just released the new MacBook Pro M5…It’s got the M5 chip plus Thunderbolt 4/5 ports. Everything else is the same.”
The price has bowled people over, too. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 starts at £1,599 and £1,499 with education savings, and is available in space black and silver.
“This is a joke in 2025,” one Reddit user fumed, while others pointed out that it was the same price as the M4.
A more positive individual waded in: “Not sure why people are so negative but it shows that they are making a lot of progress with their lower tier chips. If this scales like their other chips m5 ultra @ 1.2TB/s… then this is great news.”
Another reasoned: “Yes, it’s expensive but still a lot cheaper then what NVIDIA is offering. I’m’ happy that Apple taking this seriously rather then just selling their system as if it’s made for AI like so many others are doing. At some point others will copy and we will get systems that are reasonably priced.”
Apple has inadvertently defended the similarities in its description of the chip. The tech giant claims M5 will see AI workloads “run dramatically faster” with over four times the peak GPU compute performance compared to M4.
The GPU also offers enhanced graphics capabilities and third-generation ray tracing that combined deliver a graphics performance that is up to 45 percent higher than M4, Apple insisted.
M5 features the world’s fastest performance core, with up to a 10-core CPU made up of six efficiency cores and up to four performance cores.
“Together, they deliver up to 15 percent faster multithreaded performance over M4,” Apple added.
More than anything, it seems, M5 has been optimised for AI – every compute block of the chip, no less.
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Pro benefit from “dramatically” accelerated processing for AI-driven workflows, such as in apps like Draw Things, or running large language models locally using platforms like webAI.
The next-generation GPU and enhanced shader cores in M5 also deliver increased graphics performance, achieving up to 30 percent faster performance compared to M4 and up to 2.5x faster performance than M1.
Into smoother gameplay? The GPU provides just this, says Apple, along with more realistic visuals in 3D applications, and faster rendering times for complex graphics projects and other visually intensive applications.
“With M5, Apple Vision Pro renders 10 percent more pixels with the micro-OLED displays, and refresh rates increase up to 120Hz, resulting in crisper details, more fluid display performance, and reduced motion blur,” the company said.
Greater memory means you can do even more with AI, and allows MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Apple Vision Pro to run larger AI models completely on device.
And with 32GB of memory capacity, M5 also helps users to “seamlessly” run demanding creative suites like Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro at the same time, while uploading large files to the cloud in the background.
Perhaps try it for yourself and see what you think.
