Live data from Hacker News

MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

apple.com

181–190 of 1001 posts

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#181
post #94
post #7

The hardware looks amazing! Too bad they will ship with Tahoe installed. I’m not upgrading until I see in which direction the next Mac OS release goes

Just yesterday, my colleague's mac Time Machine couldn't recover backup and they had to reinstall everything. But I think this predates Tahoe.

Silent corruption has been a feature of Time Machine for the last 19 years. But haven't you seen the new glass effects, isn't it cool?

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#183
post #13

The performance numbers are impressive, but I do not get the on-board AI spin. What is it used for?

Local LLMs. Lots of people buy Macs due to their unified memory which obviates the need to buy a much more expensive GPU to get the same amount of VRAM.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#184
post #23

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…

So they renamed performance to mean efficiency and are now using super in place of performance?

Super is old "performance" core:

> The industry-leading super core was first introduced as performance cores in M5, which also adopts the super core name for all M5-based products

But new "performance" is claimed to be new design (= not just overclocked efficiency core from M5?):

> M5 Pro and M5 Max also introduce an all-new performance core that is optimized to deliver greater power-efficient, multithreaded performance for pro workloads.

quotes from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-debuts-m5-pro-a...

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#185
post #131

Honest question. Is it possible to install an earlier version of macOS on these machines? Liquid glass looks so.. unprofessional to my eyes. And I hear it's also unstable.

That's a big part of what's keeping me from upgrading. Every time I look at my wife's iPhone I'm dumbfounded by just how bad the liquid glass looks.

It's the first time I've ever been so repulsed by a design that I actively avoid it just... out of sheer preference.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#186
post #31
post #12

I typed “RAM” to search for it and boy they hammer home how lucky I am to be getting 1TB SSD standard, but no mention of RAM anywhere on this page. Anyway, the MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of RAM. It’s $400 to go from 16GB to 32GB. Interestingly, 36-128GB models are showing as “currently unavailable” on the store page, and you can’t even place an order for them right now? But for anyone curious, it’s quoting $5099 fo…

> It’s $400 to go from 16GB to 32GB. No change from the previous models then, 16GB->32GB was already $400. They're cutting into their previously enormous margins to keep the prices stable, rather than hiking the prices to maintain their margins.

They bought the fab time for that RAM 2-3 years ago. Apple is renowned for their foresight and preparation. We'll eventually see price increases from Apple's RAM upgrade, but we're not there yet.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#187
post #106
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.…

Apple absolutely has a massive opportunity here because they used a shared memory architecture. So as most people in or adjacent to the AI space know, NVidia gatekeeps their best GPUs with the most memory by making them eye-wateringly expensive. It's a form of market segmentation. So consumer GPUs top out at 16GB (5090 currently) while the best AI GPUs (H200?) is 141GB (I just had to search)? I think the previou sgen…

Hard to get 6000+ bit memory bus HBM bandwidth out of a 512 or 1024 bit memory bus tied to DDR... I think it's also just tough to physically tie in 512 gigs close enough to the GPU to run at those speeds. But yeah, I wish there was a very competitive local option, too, short of spending $50k+.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#188
post #7

The hardware looks amazing! Too bad they will ship with Tahoe installed. I’m not upgrading until I see in which direction the next Mac OS release goes

The next macOS will be touch screen centric with elements getting bigger when you're close to touching them, rumors say. That being said, I run Tahoe and it works perfectly fine to me, I am not sure what issues people have with it. Sure, some corner radii aren't exactly the same but I honestly couldn't give less of a shit as long as it runs the programs I need.

Safari routinely using 20+ Gb of memory with a handful of tabs open. Safari tabs refusing to close. Unresponsive System Settings window. Random application freezes and crashes, Apple Music not playing music. This is on a 32Gb M1 Max. My M1 Air on Sequoia doesn't experience any of these issues, even if it has half the unified memory.

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#189
post #6

128gb of memory, it's a nice change for Apple not to lag in that department for once, wonder what such a machine will cost though.

Checking Apple's store, I can't find a cheaper configuration than $5100 for the M5 + 128GiB version. Here in Europe, including 21% VAT, that's €6.124,00 ($7.094,35 equivalent). Because of pricing strategies and such, the 128GiB version comes with a 2TiB SSD at minimum, and also requires the M5 Max (not Pro) at its highest configuration. Not sure if this is new, but it should be noted that these laptops don't come wit…

In the US, power adapters are included:

    70W USB-C Power Adapter (included with M5 Pro with 16-core GPU)

    96W USB-C Power Adapter (included with M5 Pro with 20-core GPU, configurable with M5 Pro with 16-core GPU)

    USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable (2 m)

Re: MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max

#190

Interesting that they're showing VFX/CG software (Autodesk MAYA and Foundry Nuke) so prominently - obviously people using "Pro" machines are the target audience for this, but both of those apps (any many others in the industry) use Qt for the interface, rather than being totally platform-native.

Similar thoughts with first image of Capture One, when apple bought Pixelmator/Photomator a year ago.

I think I read somewhere long time ago that Capture One is also using Qt for GUI, though cannot find this anymore, so probably not true.

Post reply on HN