The Apple MacBook Pro Gets Major Performance Boosts, 2x Faster SSD Speeds, and 1TB of Starting Storage

It’s AI. That’s the answer to any questions you have about how and why Apple has introduced any of its new updates to its flagship MacBook Pro. In its press release announcing the new MacBook Pro model, which will be powered by the company’s all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, AI is mentioned in every headline, sub-header, and quote from company representatives.

We’ll do our best to synthesize how this new MacBook Pro can also be great for traditional digital video editing and motion graphics work, but at every turn, the focus of every improvement is to help with advanced LLMs and powering up the laptop's various AI-powered features.

It’s the future, love it or hate it. Here’s what you need to know.

Apple’s New MacBook Pro

Set to be available in 14-inch and 16-inch models beginning next week, Apple has officially introduced its new MacBook Pros powered by the company’s all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The promise, from Apple, is to bring game-changing performance and AI capabilities to the world’s best pro laptop.

“MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max redefines what’s possible on a pro laptop, now up to 4x faster than the previous generation. With Neural Accelerators in the GPU, the new MacBook Pro enables professionals to run advanced LLMs on the device and unlock capabilities that no other laptop can do — all while maintaining exceptional battery life. Combined with even faster unified memory and storage, it empowers users to take their work even further, unleashing new possibilities and pushing the boundaries of what they can do.” — John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering.

Powered by these new chips, this latest MacBook Pro model will feature 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, these updates will help deliver up to four times the AI performance when compared to previous generations, and up to eight times the AI performance of the M1 models.

Accelerating Pro Workflows

Buried in Apple’s press release, after all of the AI stuff, we do get some tidbits about other improvements coming to the new MacBook Pro, including up to two times faster SSD performance and a new starting storage level of 1TB for the M5 Pro and 2TB for the M5 Max.

The new MacBook Pro will also include N1, Apple’s new wireless networking chip that will enable Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. The new laptop will also now offer 24 hours of battery life, an impressive new Liquid Retina XDR display with a nano-texture option, and a wide array of connectivity, including Thunderbolt 5.

Still, the big news here is that the AI-focused chips will help the MacBook Pro deliver two faster read/write performance reaching speeds of up to 14.5GB/s5, ideal improvements for those looking to accelerate workflows when working on 4K and 8K video projects, as well as, you know, LLMs and other complex datasets.

Price and Availability

The new MacBook Pro is set to come in space black and silver models and will be available to pre-order starting on March 4th, with units fully available beginning on March 11th.

The 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,199, and the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,699. The 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max starts at $3,599, and the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max starts at $3,899.