Apple M5 chip • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple M5 chip

#571

Post by B1FF_PSUVM » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

hereme888 wrote: post #563

Base models only: - M1 | 5 nm | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 7–8 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 68.25 GB/s | Unified Memory: 16 GB | Geekbench6 ~2346 / 8346 - M2 | 5 nm (G2) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~2586 / 9672 - M3 | 3 nm (first-gen) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~296…

Thank you. Looking at replacing an Intel MacBook Air, I hope there are price drops on the "outdated" M4s (although an M2 phased out early this year would do well enough...)

Re: Apple M5 chip

#572

Post by port11 » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

mumber_typhoon wrote: post #44

The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…

It's incredible what the hardware teams at Apple have been doing. I imagine they also feel let down by the software that's driving these beasts. It's as if they're 2 completely different companies.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#573

Post by nu11ptr » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

hereme888 wrote: post #563

Base models only: - M1 | 5 nm | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 7–8 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 68.25 GB/s | Unified Memory: 16 GB | Geekbench6 ~2346 / 8346 - M2 | 5 nm (G2) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~2586 / 9672 - M3 | 3 nm (first-gen) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~296…

The step down from 32GB to 24GB of unified memory is interesting. Theories? Perhaps they decided M4 allowed too much memory in the standard chip and they want to create a larger differential with Pro/Max chips?

Update: I am thinking the 24GB for M5 is a typo. I see on Apple's site the 14 inch MBP can be configured optionally with 32GB of RAM.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#574

Post by textlapse » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC

I wonder how much of the nVidia DGX Spark announcement was meant to precede this M5 announcement by a day or two; M5 MBP has higher performance with a monitor attached and with a (bit) lower price tag.

If you could yank the screen out, it probably evens out :)

I have seen quite a few such announcements from competitors that tend to be so close that I wonder if they have some competitor analysis to precede the Goliath by a few days (like Google vs rest, Apple vs rest etc).

Re: Apple M5 chip

#575

Post by Remnant44 » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC

wina wrote: post #524

allenrb wrote: post #514

I’d like a filter to remove all mention of AI and associated performance from copy like this. Maybe I can build it with… nvm. Seriously, can’t you tell me about the CPU cores and their performance?

why do you want more CPU cores and better performance than the M4, if not for running local AI models?

Essentially ever other use case for a computer.

Whether you're playing games, or editing videos, or doing 3D work, or trying to digest the latest bloated react mess on some website.. ;)

Re: Apple M5 chip

#576

Post by omikun » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #392

M5 is 4-6x more powerful than M4, which was 5x more powerful than M3, which was 4x more powerful than M2, which was 4x more powerful than M1, which itself was 6x faster than an equivalent Intel processor. Great! Looking at my Macbook though, I can say with utmost certainty that it isn't 4000x faster than the Intel one I had 5 years ago. So, where is the disconnect here? Why is actual user experience not able to keep…

Says M5 is 4x faster than M4 and 6x faster than M1 for AI compute on the GPU. Basically M4 was only a little faster than M1 at this task. Ex. if M5 is 24 AI TOPS, M4 is 6 AI TOPS, and M1 is 4 AI TOPS.

Unless you're looking at your MacBook running LM Studio you won't be seeing much improvement in this regard.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#577

Post by netcoyote » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

butlike wrote: post #206

lelandfe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a UI/UX nerd, it’s a coin flip on intentionality. I’ve been noticing so many rough edges to Apple’s software when it used to astound. iOS Settings search will flash “No Results” as you begin to type which is comically amateurish. The macOS menu bar control panels can’t be keyboard navigated... It’s just silly. I’ve been debating making a Tumblr-style blog, something like “dumbapple.com,” to catalogue all the dumb…

iirc, there's a setting to make the menu bar navigatable. you just need to "alt+tab" to it with some weird button combo, like Ctrl + Cmd + 1 or something.

There's also an app, MenuWhere, that enables you to configure different keys to walk the menu bar. It's free (but nagware). https://manytricks.com/menuwhere/

Re: Apple M5 chip

#578

Post by textlapse » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

toddmorey wrote: post #6

The modern Apple feels like their hardware teams way outperforming the software teams.

It does feel like Apple is firing on all cylinders for their core competencies.

Software (iOS26), services (Music/Tv/Cloud/Apple Intelligence) and marketing (just keep screaming Apple Intelligence for 3 months and then scream Liquid Glass) ---- on the other hand seem like they are losing steam or very reactive.

No wonder John Ternus is the widely anticipated to replace Tim Cook (and not Craig).

Re: Apple M5 chip

#579

Post by makeramen » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

nu11ptr wrote: post #573

hereme888 wrote: post #563

Base models only: - M1 | 5 nm | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 7–8 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 68.25 GB/s | Unified Memory: 16 GB | Geekbench6 ~2346 / 8346 - M2 | 5 nm (G2) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~2586 / 9672 - M3 | 3 nm (first-gen) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~296…

The step down from 32GB to 24GB of unified memory is interesting. Theories? Perhaps they decided M4 allowed too much memory in the standard chip and they want to create a larger differential with Pro/Max chips? Update: I am thinking the 24GB for M5 is a typo. I see on Apple's site the 14 inch MBP can be configured optionally with 32GB of RAM.

That seems like a typo or incorrect info, the M5 MBP definitely can be configured up to 32 GB, and the Apple page mentions 32 GB explicitly as well.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#580

Post by christkv » Wed, Oct 15, 2025, 6:38 PM UTC

nu11ptr wrote: post #573

hereme888 wrote: post #563

Base models only: - M1 | 5 nm | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 7–8 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 68.25 GB/s | Unified Memory: 16 GB | Geekbench6 ~2346 / 8346 - M2 | 5 nm (G2) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~2586 / 9672 - M3 | 3 nm (first-gen) | 8 (4P+4E) | GPU 8–10 | 16-core Neural | Memory Bandwidth: 100 GB/s | Unified Memory: 24 GB | Geekbench6 ~296…

The step down from 32GB to 24GB of unified memory is interesting. Theories? Perhaps they decided M4 allowed too much memory in the standard chip and they want to create a larger differential with Pro/Max chips? Update: I am thinking the 24GB for M5 is a typo. I see on Apple's site the 14 inch MBP can be configured optionally with 32GB of RAM.

the still have an option for 32GB