Apple's spring new products are targeting the high-end market. The AI performance has skyrocketed by 8 times, starting at 8,499 yuan.

Apple has also gone against the norm. Without holding a press conference or spreading out the announcements, they just updated all their laptops in one go!

We really can't believe this move isn't aimed at making a big splash —

On one hand, the MacBook Pro M5 series and MacBook Air M5 laptops are being released simultaneously with great fanfare, starting at 8,499 yuan.

On the other hand, the monitors have also received a major update: Studio Display and Studio Display XDR are making their debut together.

In terms of chips, the new MacBook Pro is equipped with Apple's most powerful laptop chips, M5 Pro and M5 Max, boosting the overall performance to an engineer - level standard.

The CPU specifications have also been significantly enhanced — with a maximum of 18 - core CPU, the code compilation and other capabilities in applications like Xcode have been notably accelerated.

In terms of prompt processing speed, these two chips are 4 times faster than the M4 Pro/M4 Max. Simply put, it's like getting the job done more efficiently.

In terms of image generation speed, these two chips are 8 times faster than the M1 Pro/M1 Max, significantly improving the output efficiency of AIGC content.

Of course, if you're an old user from the M1 era upgrading, then congratulations:

You'll clearly feel a speed difference of up to 8 times when performing AI tasks —

It's like the smooth transition from an iPhone 6s to an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

With the improved chip performance and enhanced AI capabilities, Apple users can now enjoy a more satisfying "AI feast".

The laptops equipped with the most powerful M5 series chips are here

This time, Apple has brought two new laptops at once: the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air.

Let's first talk about the MacBook Pro, which has quite an impressive performance.

After all, there have been some "significant" moves in terms of chips this time —

Apple has installed its latest, most advanced, and arguably the world's most powerful M5 Pro/M5 Max chips in its laptops. (Wow)

In the past few years, the performance of laptops has mainly revolved around CPU, GPU, and power consumption optimization. However, with the intensifying competition in models in the past two years, laptops are now also focusing on AI computing power and multi - task processing capabilities.

Sure enough, Apple has also put some effort into the "architectural design" of the MacBook Pro.

In terms of architecture, the M5 Pro and M5 Max use Apple's newly designed Fusion. Both chips can be configured with a maximum of 18 - core CPUs. The official direct comparison data shows that —

Compared with the M4 Max, the CPU architecture of the new chips has improved multi - thread performance by about 15%.

Compared with the M4 Pro, the overall performance of the M5 Pro has increased by approximately 30%.

It goes without saying — this chip is truly designed for AI. (wink)

With the improved chip performance, the AI performance is even more remarkable, especially for the MacBook Pro equipped with the M5 Max —

AI image generation ability: Compared with the MacBook Pro with M1 Max, the speed is up to 8 times faster, and it's also 3.8 times faster than the M4 Max.

LLM prompt processing ability: In terms of prompt processing, it has increased by 6.7 times compared with the M1 Max and 4 times compared with the M4 Max.

Video special effects rendering ability: It's 5.4 times faster than the M1 Max and 3 times faster than the M4 Max, making video editing smoother.

AI video enhancement ability: Compared with the M4 Max, the performance has increased by 3.5 times, and the video visual processing effect will be even better.

In addition, in terms of graphics performance, the M5 Max has also improved by about 20% compared with the M4 Max. In applications like ray - tracing, the performance has further improved, about 30% higher than the M4.

Operations that used to be performance - intensive, such as real - time processing of complex 3D scenes by motion designers and instant preview of special effects by AIGC creators, are now much easier?

With so many comparison data, it's quite overwhelming. In the end —

I guess what these performance improvements imply is that Apple is saying: Our laptops are better at running AI locally!

Of course, with the improvement of AI capabilities, the upgrade of chip performance has also boosted the storage performance.

In terms of read/write speed, the read/write speed of the new MacBook Pro has increased by up to 2 times compared with the previous generation, with a peak of 14.5GB/s. The configuration is also more generous —

The M5 Pro version comes with a standard 1TB storage, and the M5 Max version directly comes with a standard 2TB. (Generous.jpg)

In terms of battery life, the new MacBook Pro can last up to 24 hours. If you're upgrading from an Intel model, you can use it for up to 13 more hours, and M1 users can get about 3 more hours.

According to the official statement, if we use a 96W or higher - power adapter, we can charge it to 50% in 30 minutes.

In addition, the display of the MacBook Pro has also been optimized.

The screen uses the Liquid Retina XDR display, which has excellent visual performance. It has an HDR peak brightness of 1600 nits and a maximum SDR content brightness of 1000 nits, and also supports the nano - texture screen option.

For tasks that require high - quality screens, such as photo editing by photographers, color grading by video creators, and detail processing by designers, such brightness and contrast can enhance the image details — highlights won't be overexposed, and dark areas can be seen more clearly.

Moreover, the wireless connection has been upgraded to a new standard —

The new MacBook Pro is equipped with Apple's N1 chip, supporting Wi - Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Yes, the connection speed and stability have reached a new level.

Apple has also released a new laptop, the MacBook Air, equipped with the M5 chip.

Compared with the Pro model, the biggest difference lies mainly in the chip configuration. The MacBook Air is equipped with the M5 chip, and its overall positioning is more towards portability and daily productivity.

Like the previous generation, the new M5 MacBook Air is available in two sizes, 13 - inch and 15 - inch, and comes in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver colors.

In addition, the storage capacity has also been improved.

The previous - generation M4 MacBook Air supported a maximum of 2TB storage, while the new M5 MacBook Air has doubled the upper limit to 4TB.

The memory configuration remains the same, still offering 16GB, 24GB, and 32GB versions.

The wireless connection has also been upgraded, from Wi - Fi 6E to Wi - Fi 7, and Bluetooth has been upgraded from 5.3 to Bluetooth 6.

Well, in the past, computers were mainly used to run software, but now they are more like hosts for AI applications.

With powerful chips and enhanced AI capabilities, Apple is happy, and Apple fans —

have more reasons to upgrade their devices. (wink)

OMT

Whether it's the M5 Pro or the M5 Max.

Even if Apple presents a deluge of parameter tables, it's not hard to see from this wave of performance improvements that —

The trend of running AI locally has really reached Apple.

Do you still remember when OpenClaw first became popular? A lot of people rushed to buy Mac minis, which boosted the sales of Mac minis.

Not long after, OpenClaw didn't emphasize the use of external devices as much, and the threshold for local deployment has been getting lower and lower.

Now, many AI products have directly integrated AI models into their own AI tools, allowing users to run AI locally just by opening a website or an app.

So, it's obvious that Apple is bound to get a share of this AI "pie".

After all — with such excellent chip performance and powerful AI capabilities, it would be a pity not to run AI locally.

What's more interesting is that this isn't the first time Apple has had this idea.

Previously, both Apple's official announcements and multiple leaks have mentioned that Siri might receive a major upgrade this year:

It is said that in terms of AI capabilities, Siri will be more like a chatbot, capable of performing multi - step tasks across apps, understanding screen content, and directly operating apps on behalf of users.

This ability sounds very familiar. Well, if Siri really gets these capabilities, it's basically like having an AI assistant.

Since Siri is starting to have an "AI flavor", then the question is:

Will Apple directly provide users with a Mac that comes with an AI model out of the box? (Let's look forward to it)

This article is from the WeChat official account “Quantum Bit”, written by Mengyao. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.