Apple’s New M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips Are Designed for AI, But Actually Could Boost Video Editing

We know, every year we get a new something or other from Apple that promises to change the game for filmmakers and video editors. And while that often is the case, kind of, this year might be a bit extra. While Apple announced a new, more powerful, and more affordable iPhone 17e yesterday, the company has dropped perhaps bigger news today with the announcement of its new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.

Set to power the new MacBook Pro (more on that later), these new chips are some of the most advanced ever built for laptops, and they could be quite intriguing for filmmakers, video editors, and motion graphic artists on the move.

Apple Introduces M5 Pro and M5 Max Chips

Built using Apple’s Fusion Architecture, these new chips promise to be some of the most advanced ever created for pro laptops as they will feature advanced CPUs, next-generation GPUs with neural accelerators, and higher unified memory bandwidth than we’ve ever seen before for laptop chips like these.

“M5 Pro and M5 Max are a monumental leap forward for Apple silicon, leveraging our new Fusion Architecture to scale the capabilities of Apple silicon while preserving its core tenets of performance, power efficiency, and unified memory architecture. Both chips underscore our relentless pace of innovation, integrating the world’s fastest CPU cores, a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerators, a faster Neural Engine, and high-bandwidth, high-capacity memory — resulting in an unparalleled combination of performance, efficiency, and incredible on-device AI capabilities for MacBook Pro.” — Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies.

Of course, when you look at the announcement from Apple, the main selling points for these new chips all pretty much have to do with AI computing power. And while that is the focus, they are set to offer more than you might think for video editors and motion graphic artists.

Apple’s Fastest, Most Advanced CPU Cores

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For those more interested in the processing powers of these new chips, Apple does report that the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips will be over 4x the peak GPU for computing compared to previous generations.

The big news here, too, is that the GPU will substantially increase graphics capabilities (now up to 35 percent for apps using ray tracing than M4 Pro and M4 Max), which should help to further enhance advanced visual effects and 3D rendering.

Overall, these new chips should be quite helpful for those working in all different types of fields, whether those be app developers, AI researchers, or 3D animators who might want to run workloads that demand maximum GPU compute and the highest unified memory bandwidth.

We’ll check out the newest MacBook Pro powered by these chips here next, but for now, if you’d like more info on the M5 Pro and M5 Max, check out Apple’s website here.