Apple has introduced its M5 chip and rolled it straight into a refreshed 14-inch MacBook Pro, an updated iPad Pro and an upgraded Vision Pro headset. The company is pitching a clear step-up in on-device AI and graphics: a next-generation 10-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in every core, a faster CPU, a quicker 16-core Neural Engine, and a near-30 percent bump in unified memory bandwidth to 153 GB/s. Pre-orders open today, with the 14-inch MacBook Pro starting at Rs 1,69,900 in India.
This drop arrives exactly as the grapevine suggested. In the run-up to today, industry chatter pointed to Apple skipping a showy keynote and pushing out an M5 + products wave via press releases this week. That is precisely what turned up — a silicon note, a MacBook Pro update, and a Vision Pro refresh — all the substance, none of the stagecraft.
“M5 ushers in the next big leap in AI performance for Apple silicon,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice-president of Hardware Technologies, arguing that the Neural Accelerators inside each GPU core “deliver a huge boost to AI workloads.”
What The M5 Changes
Built on third-generation 3-nanometre technology, M5 introduces a 10-core GPU with third-generation hardware ray tracing and re-worked dynamic caching. Apple claims more than four times the peak GPU compute for AI versus M4, up to a 45 percent uplift in ray-traced graphics, and up to 15 percent higher multi-threaded CPU performance. The faster 16-core Neural Engine, coupled with GPU-level accelerators, is tuned to speed up Apple Intelligence features and developer models that run locally inside Apple’s frameworks.
MacBook Pro: Faster Storage, Same Marathon Battery
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro pairs M5 with faster SSDs while keeping quoted battery life at up to 24 hours. The machine retains the Liquid Retina XDR display (with an optional nano-texture finish), the 12-megapixel Centre Stage camera, six-speaker audio and a broad port selection. It ships with macOS Tahoe and Apple Intelligence in beta. “M5 marks the next big leap in AI for the Mac,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice-president of Hardware Engineering. India availability begins on Wednesday, 22 October.
Notably, there is no chatter about a 16-inch MacBook Pro model or Pro and Max versions of the M5 processor at this stage. Last year, Apple debuted the M4 with the iPad Pro in March but then in November added the M4 Pro and M4 Max with the debut of the MacBook Pro models which were offered in both 14-inch and 16-inch avatars. Probably, early next year, Apple will drop the 16-inch and Pro and Max versions of the M5 chipset.
Vision Pro: Sharper Panels, Smoother Motion
Apple’s spatial-reality headset also moves to M5. The updated Vision Pro renders around 10 percent more pixels on its custom micro-OLED panels and can push refresh rates up to 120 Hz, improving text clarity, reducing motion blur and smoothing Mac Virtual Display. Against the original Vision Pro, the refresh centres on these display and performance gains, complemented by comfort tweaks and visionOS updates, rather than a ground-up redesign. India pricing has not been announced.
Key Specifications
Item
| Specification
| Process
| Third-generation 3-nm
| CPU
| Up to 10-core (up to 4 performance + 6 efficiency cores)
| GPU
| 10-core; Neural Accelerator per core; 3rd-gen ray tracing; 2nd-gen dynamic caching
| Neural Engine
| 16-core (faster than M4; TOPS not disclosed)
| Unified Memory
| 153 GB/s bandwidth; up to 32 GB capacity (device-dependent)
| Media Engine
| Hardware encode/decode; AI-assisted video features
| Devices
| 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, Vision Pro
| India Pricing
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) from Rs 1,69,900; Vision Pro (M5) TBA
| Availability (India)
| Pre-orders today; retail from 22 October (MacBook Pro)
|
How It Stacks Up: Qualcomm And Intel
Direct, like-for-like comparisons are imperfect because Apple cites relative gains over M4 rather than raw TOPS, while rivals lead with headline AI throughput. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme for Windows laptops advertise up to 80 TOPS on the NPU alone, positioning the Extreme variant for heavier local AI. Intel’s forthcoming Panther Lake platform talks up to 180 “platform TOPS” across CPU, GPU and NPU combined, alongside sizable CPU/GPU uplifts with its Xe3 graphics architecture. In practical terms, Apple’s pitch is about immediate speed-ups inside Metal, Core ML, Final Cut and Photos; on Windows machines, Qualcomm and Intel emphasise raw AI acceleration for Copilot+ and third-party workflows.
India Pricing And Availability
In India, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 starts at Rs 1,69,900, offered in space black and silver with storage options configurable up to 4 TB and lower education pricing available. Pre-orders begin today, and retail availability starts on 22 October. The refreshed Vision Pro with M5-class performance gains has been announced without Indian pricing at the time of writing.
What Changes Day-To-Day
For creators, M5’s GPU and media engine should reduce render and export times and make hardware-accelerated ray tracing more usable on a portable. Developers and analysts can expect faster compiles and snappier multi-threaded workloads, while everyday users should see more responsive Apple Intelligence features that remain on device. As Ternus put it, the combination of performance, battery life and display quality is meant to nudge the 14-inch MacBook Pro “to another level.” |
