Apple released three new products: they are expensive but with powerful AI capabilities.

Apple's Most Powerful Gaming Laptop

Apple has been quite active since entering October.

Two days ago, Tim Cook himself promoted the Chinese - version iPhone Air in the Douyin live - stream of the Apple Store. And just now, Apple directly launched this year's new MacBook on its official website ——

The MacBook Pro equipped with the M5 processor, "Truly fast, not a dream":

What's special is that in previous years, all Macs with Apple Silicon processors were released simultaneously across the entire series. However, Apple's pace has changed a bit this year ——

In this MacBook Pro, we didn't see the M5 Pro or M5 Max. Instead, there's only the basic - version M5 processor with a 10 + 10 - core configuration.

Consistent with earlier predictions, the M5 processor is built on TSMC's 3nm process. It belongs to the same - generation process as the A19 Pro processor, which has significantly improved energy efficiency this year, and the process advantages are obvious.

The M5's architecture also maintains a combination of a 10 - core CPU and a 10 - core GPU. According to the chart on Apple's official website, this year, the M5's LLM prompt - processing performance is 6.4 times that of the M1, and its 3D rendering performance is 6.8 times that of the M1:

This level of progress is mutually verified by the earlier leaked benchmark scores of the M5 iPad Pro. Yes, the M5 iPad Pro that was unboxed by a Russian guy recently was also released tonight, starting at a price of 8,999 yuan. The fully - configured 2TB version is priced at a staggering 22,499 yuan. Overall, it can be seen that Apple's self - developed GPU has been significantly improved in this generation. I'm sure the colleague in the editorial department who likes to play Cyberpunk 2077 on the MacBook will be eager to get one.

In terms of appearance, the M5 MacBook Pro doesn't bring any surprises at all ——

It still uses the notch - screen mold that has been with us since 2021, and still has a 14 - or 16 - inch miniLED screen with a peak HDR brightness of 1,600 nits. You can also optionally choose the anti - glare nano - textured glass version.

Just like in the M4 era, this M5 MacBook Pro still offers three memory options: 16/24/32GB, and the maximum - available hard - drive capacity has been upgraded to 4TB.

With such configuration options, the starting 14 - inch M5 MacBook Pro with 16 + 512GB still costs 12,999 yuan. After fully configuring all the options, the price can reach up to 26,000 yuan ——

Although the starting price is the same as that of the M4 - version MacBook Pro, the most important processor upgrade is like a free bonus. But when you think about it carefully, it's still a rather painful price. Relying solely on Apple Silicon can't offset the costs of major components like the miniLED display.

We can see that Apple has invested a huge amount of R & D funds to maintain the update and upgrade of the M - series processors.

Besides relying on the iPad for high sales volume, the only way is to let the M - series processors share a similar process to try to offset the early investment ——

For now, although this year's M5 MacBook Pro has made great leaps in GPU and NPU performance and can undoubtedly be crowned as Apple's most powerful gaming laptop at present, it's still a long way from the notch - less, touch - screen OLED - screen MacBook Pro we're looking forward to.

However, in the context of national subsidies, "Buy the new one, not the old one" is still the golden rule when choosing a Mac.

The M5 MacBook Pro may seem powerful, but you have to pay a lot of extra costs for peripherals like the screen when placing an order. But don't forget ——

It won't be long before we can get the M5 MacBook Air and Mac mini with a greatly improved GPU and better energy efficiency.

Moreover, there are more than two new products today. The 2025 Apple Vision Pro also uses the M5 processor:

Combined with the significant improvement in the GPU performance of the M5 processor mentioned above, although the appearance of this year's M5 Vision Pro hasn't changed much, "It can provide faster performance, clearer details throughout the system, and longer battery life."

According to Apple's Newsroom, the Vision Pro with the M5 processor can render 10% more pixels on the screen than the previous generation, achieve a 120Hz refresh rate, and have a minimum video latency of 12ms, making the experience even more realistic.

Apple also claims that the 16 - core neural engine inside the M5 can speed up the operation of AI features in the system experience by up to 50% (such as converting spatial photos), and the operation speed of third - party apps has also been significantly improved:

In addition, the excellent cost - performance ratio of the M5 allows the Vision Pro to have a normal - use battery life of 2.5 hours and can last for 3 hours when playing videos continuously, allowing you to immerse yourself in the virtual world for a longer time ——

For example, Spectrum SportsNet has brought immersive spatial videos from NBA games to the Vision Pro through Apple Immersive on visionOS.

And it's not just the NBA. According to Apple's announcement, including baseball, MotoGP, the Tour de France, and even new films from Audi F1 and Red Bull will be available on Apple Immersive in the next few months, making the content - consumption ability of the Vision Pro worth the price:

The Vision Pro equipped with the M5 chip will start accepting pre - orders on October 17th and will be available for sale starting from October 22nd. The starting 256GB model still costs 29,999 yuan.

This article is from the WeChat official account “ifanr”, author: Ma Fuyao. Republished by 36Kr with permission.