Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced the latest 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with the all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max, bringing game-changing performance and AI capabilities to the world’s best pro laptop. With M5 Pro and M5 Max, MacBook Pro features a new CPU with the world’s fastest CPU core, a next-generation GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core, and higher unified memory bandwidth, altogether delivering up to 4× AI performance compared to the previous generation, and up to 8× AI performance compared to M1 models. This allows developers, researchers, business professionals, and creatives to unlock new AI-enabled workflows right on MacBook Pro. It now comes with up to 2× faster SSD performance and starts at 1TB of storage for M5 Pro and 2TB for M5 Max. The new MacBook Pro includes N1, an Apple-designed wireless networking chip that enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, bringing improved performance and reliability to wireless connections. It also offers up to 24 hours of battery life; a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option; a wide array of connectivity, including Thunderbolt 5; a 12MP Center Stage camera; studio-quality mics; an immersive six-speaker sound system; Apple Intelligence features; and the power of macOS Tahoe. The new MacBook Pro comes in space black and silver, and is available to pre-order starting tomorrow, March 4, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 11.

The MacBook Pro Tech Specs page is a good place to start to compare the entire M5 MacBook Pro lineup. One noteworthy change is that last year’s M4 Pro models only supported 24 or 48 GB of RAM; the new M5 Pro models support 24, 48, and 64 GB. Memory configurations for the M5 Max are unchanged from the M4 Max: 36, 48, 64, and 128 GB. (You could get an M4 Pro chip with 64 GB, but only on the Mac Mini.)

Also worth noting — Apple’s RAM pricing remains unchanged, despite the spike in memory prices industry-wide. With the “full” M5 Max chip (18-core CPU, 40-core GPU — there’s a lesser configuration with “only” 32 GPU cores for -⁠$300), base memory is 48 GB. Upgrading to 64 GB costs $200, and upgrading to 128 GB costs $1,000. Same prices as last year. This means the price for a MacBook Pro with 64 GB of RAM — if that’s your main concern — dropped by $800 year over year. Last year you needed to buy one with the high-end M4 Max chip to get 64 GB; now you can configure a MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro with 64 GB. Nice!

Ben Thompson and I wagered a steak dinner on this on Dithering. Ben bet on Apple’s memory prices going up; I bet on them staying the same. My thinking was that this industry-wide spike in RAM prices is exactly why Apple has always charged more for memory — “just in case”. I’m going to enjoy that steak.