MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#161

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

Lalabadie wrote: post #98

Tangokat wrote: post #5

"Scaling up performance from M5 and offering the same breakthrough GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing than M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 8x AI image generation than M1 Pro and M1 Max." Are they doubling down on local LLMs then? I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution.…

There already are a bunch of task-specific models running on their devices, it makes sense to maintain and build capacity in that area. I assume they have a moderate bet on on-device SLMs in addition to other ML models, but not much planned for LLMs, which at that scale, might be good as generalists but very poor at guaranteeing success for each specific minute tasks you want done. In short: 8gb to store tens of very…

[deleted]

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#162

Post by satvikpendem » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

butILoveLife wrote: post #60

testfrequency wrote: post #15

I have a fairly maxed out M2 Ultra (24 cores, 192GB RAM), and still cannot get this machine to choke on anything. I have not once felt the need to upgrade in years, and that’s with doing pretty demanding 3D and LLM work.

[flagged]

Just because you don't usually use local models doesn't mean others don't, especially with their 192 GB of RAM.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#163

Post by jwr » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

I would probably upgrade my MacBook Pro at once, if it wasn't for the Tahoe disaster. Now, not so much, I'm inclined to wait until next year.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#164

Post by JCharante » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

davidmurdoch wrote: post #75

fny wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the push by devs towards Metal compatibility has been 10x than AMD. I assume that's because the majority of us run MacBooks.

Who is "us" in this case? Majority of devs that took the stack overflow survey use Windows: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology/#1-computer-...

Majority of devs are in the global south I presume

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#165

Post by SirMaster » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #74

ezfe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re literally not changing

It did change. They bumped $200 on the entire line. So even the 16GB version is more expensive. I'd love to have customers like Apple. Bumps $200: "it didn't change!!!" And no power adapter included.

You mean bumped $100. M4 MacBook Pro and M5 MacBook Pro started at $1599 with 512GB SSD.

Now it starts at $1699, a $100 bump but comes with a 1TB SSD. Previously it would have cost $1799 for the 1T SSD, so it's a $100 bump on base price but you are also getting 1TB SSD for $100 less than before.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#166

Post by Analemma_ » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

arianvanp wrote: post #41

carlmr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've upgraded to Tahoe at 26.2, zero complaints from my side. Haven't had any runaway memory leaks or similar that were reported.

Closing Tabs in Safari till takes more than a second though. And if you hold Cmd-W to close all of them it just completely locks up and crashes. Still not fixed since the release of Safari 26. Literally unusable

I'm on an M4 Pro MacBook-- basically the fastest computer you could buy from Apple before today-- and opening/closing the tab sidebar in Safari on Tahoe takes multiple seconds, even if I have only 4-6 tabs open, and seems to drop to 5 FPS. It's comically bad.

It's so bad I switched back to Chrome. I had thought Chrome had a major battery life penalty compared to Safari on Macs, but I checked more up-to-date info and apparently that's outdated.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#167

Post by re-thc » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:57 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #74

ezfe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re literally not changing

It did change. They bumped $200 on the entire line. So even the 16GB version is more expensive. I'd love to have customers like Apple. Bumps $200: "it didn't change!!!" And no power adapter included.

> It did change. They bumped $200 on the entire line.

I wonder if that would happen regardless of RAM, e.g. for tariffs etc.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#168

Post by klausa » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #4

Whoah, both the Pro and Max CPUs feature 18 cores. This hasn't happened since M1 Pro/Max. This is a surprise. Also, the mix of cores have changed drastically. - 6 "Super cores" - 12 "Performance cores" I'm guessing these are just renamed performance and efficiency cores from previous generations. This is a massive change from the M4 Max: - 12 performance cores - 4 efficiency cores This seems like a downgrade (in core…

I don't think the "new" Performance cores are just "renamed" "E" / "Efficiency" cores; Apple has retroactively renamed the baseline M5 nomenclature to say it has "10-core CPU with 4 super cores and 6 efficiency cores"; so they're clearly keeping the "efficiency cores" nomenclature around.

I think this is a new design, with Apple having three tiers of cores now, similar to what Qualcomm has been doing for a while.

I think how it breaks down is:

- "Super" are the old "P" cores, and the top tier cores now

- "Performance" cores are a new tier and seen for the first time here, slotting between "old" P and E in performance

- "Efficiency" / "E" are still going to be around; but maybe not in desktop/Pro/Max anymore.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#169

Post by SirMaster » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #80

$200 price bump across the board. The cheapest 16" is now $2699 and 14" Pro $2199. I think it's a fair price considering M2Pro 14" was $1999 (though it was discounted) only had 512GB and 16GB RAM.

It's not $200 across the board. M4 MacBook Pro and M5 MacBook Pro started at $1599 with 512GB SSD.

Now it starts at $1699, a $100 bump but comes with a 1TB SSD. Previously it would have cost $1799 for the 1T SSD, so it's a $100 bump on base price but you are also getting 1TB SDD for $100 less than before.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#170

Post by tiffanyh » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 2:58 PM UTC

Tangokat wrote: post #5

"Scaling up performance from M5 and offering the same breakthrough GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core, M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver up to 4x faster LLM prompt processing than M4 Pro and M4 Max, and up to 8x AI image generation than M1 Pro and M1 Max." Are they doubling down on local LLMs then? I still think Apple has a huge opportunity in privacy first LLMs but so far I'm not seeing much execution.…

> Are they doubling down on local LLMs then?

Apple is in the hardware business.

They want you to buy their hardware.

People using Cloud for compute is essentially competitive to their core business.