The new MacBook Pro is still fast as hell

Apple’s flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro has reigned supreme in the world of creator-focused laptops since its M-series processor overhaul in 2021. Since then, we’ve mostly seen the same design with year-over-year chip bumps and small refinements. “If it ain’t broke,” right?

If you want to know everything about this machine, you can read our review of the last-gen M4 Pro / M4 Max models — it pretty much all holds up with the M5 models that replace them. But this time around, in addition to the usual testing and use of the new M5 Max model, it’s worth asking a specific new question: whether you should consider a new MacBook Pro if you’re currently using an M1 Pro or M1 Max model.

I see you in the comments section, 2021 MacBook owners, wondering when an upgrade is worth it. And I’m here for you. We got our hands on some four-and-a-half-year-old MacBook Pros to test them against Apple’s latest and greatest, and it’s safe to say it’s worth upgrading — for some of you, at least.

For 2026, the 16-inch MacBook Pro has faster processors, Wi-Fi 7 support, and twice-as-fast storage that now starts at higher capacities. The Pro costs $2,699 for an M5 Pro chip with an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU, “just” 24GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. At a starting price of $3,899, the M5 Max has an 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 36GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage — along with double-capacity memory bandwidth over the M5 Pro (for faster data transfer between the CPU and RAM). Our M5 Max test unit is souped up with a 40-core GPU, 128GB of RAM, 4TB of storage, and a Nano-texture anti-glare display, all costing an exorbitant $6,149.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pros I got my hands on for some limited testing have comparatively quaint specs. The M1 Pro is a 10-core CPU / 16-core GPU model, with 16GB of RAM and 1TB storage (it cost $2,699 when new in 2021). And the M1 Max has 10 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage ($3,499 in 2021). Just like the M5 Max, the original M1 Max was all about those graphics cores for GPU-intensive workloads.

We put all of these laptops through the same battery of benchmark tests to find out just how far the M series has come in five years. In a nutshell: pretty far. The M5 Max’s single threaded scores in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2026 are around 65 to 76 percent higher than the M1 Max, and its multi-threaded scores in the same tests are about 124 to 161 percent higher. The 40 GPU cores of the M5 Max nearly double the M1 Max’s 32-core GPU scores in both Metal and OpenCL graphics frameworks.

The differences between the M5 Max and M1 Pro are even more stark. The M5 Max scored 76 to 85 percent higher than the M1 Pro in single-threaded CPU tests and it more than triples the M1 Pro’s Metal and OpenCL GPU scores. In PugetBench tests for Adobe apps, the M5 Max scored nearly twice as high in Photoshop and well over double in Premiere Pro (141 percent higher, to be exact). As for SSD read / write speeds, the M5 Max equally beats both the M1 Pro and M1 Max. It’s more than twice as fast, just as Apple bills it. This takes storage that was already fast and kicks it up to ludicrous speed.

The M1 Pro and M1 Max laptops I borrowed for these tests both belong to professionals I know who are in no rush to upgrade. The M1 Max is our own Kevin McShane’s, who tells me it’s still performing great for both his video / audio work for noti.group (which is typically 1080p) and the cartoon and animation work he does in Clip Studio Paint and After Effects on the side. Kevin says he’d only consider upgrading if he were consistently editing native 4K or something much heftier like 8K. For now, his M1 Max is fine, and I know many M1 Pro / M1 Max owners feel the same (yes, I see your comments). After running these tests I can say that the M5 Max now offers a sizable upgrade, but few actually need it. For those who do, the new MacBook Pros are noticeably faster in terms of raw chip, memory, and storage performance, and a jump from the M1 generation to an M5 Max or even M5 Pro also means getting Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, a much improved webcam, and a $150 option for an anti-glare screen.

In my review of the M5 MacBook Air, I also noticed another sect of M1-generation MacBook Pro owners: ones considering a “downgrade” to the M5 Air after coming to terms with an M1 Pro or M1 Max being more computer than they really needed. An M5 Air doesn’t have as nice a screen or expansive a port selection as a MacBook Pro, and its fanless design will throttle performance under very heavy and extended loads, but check out the benchmark table below. On pure performance, it’s now a solid alternative to an M1 Pro if you want something lighter and cheaper. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with a regular M5 also presents a step up from an M1 Pro, without sacrificing those “Pro” niceties.

The M5 Max offers a groundswell of speed upgrades for the top percent of users who are now feeling the limitations of a three- or four-year-old laptop, but there’s of course still that looming rumor of an Ultra-like MacBook Pro with a touchscreen OLED possibly coming this year or next. There’s no harm in holding out to see if that unicorn is on the horizon, even if like me you’re just curious how Apple will finally revamp this design. (How about some fun Neo-like colors, Apple? Pros like color, too!) But for those that feel they need more power now, the M5 generation of MacBook Pros is a nice jump forward.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / noti.group