- Our testing shows Apple’s M5 chip scoring some impressive results
- The M5 MacBook Pro leapt to the top of our Cinebench R24 charts
- It also posted strong SSD and gaming numbers compared to past models
Apple’s new M5 MacBook Pro feels like a small update – there’s no new design and few new features, with the M5 chip being one of the only ways to differentiate it from its M4 predecessor. Yet after we put the new model through its paces in our lab tests and Apple M5 MacBook Pro review, one thing became obvious – it’s absolutely world-beating in one important way.
In TechRadar’s in-house testing, the M5 MacBook Pro scored 199 in single-core testing when run through the Cinebench R24 benchmark. That’s the highest single-core Cinebench R24 score we’ve ever seen, making the laptop a powerhouse when it comes to CPU-bound workloads. For comparison, we also tested last year’s M4 Mac mini using Cinebench R24, and it clocked in with a slower score of 161.
And it’s not just the M5 chip that impresses – its storage drive performance is also a leap above that seen in the previous model. With the M4 chip, we recorded Blackmagic Disk Speed Test results of 3,318.6MB/s for write speed and 2,899.5MB/s for read speed. In the M5 model, those numbers leapt up to 6,517.7MB/s and 6,619.7MB/s, respectively. That’s an extraordinary increase – roughly double the performance – and is in line with claims Apple made when the M5 chip launched.
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There was also a significant improvement in gaming. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider running at 1080p, for example, the M4 chip hit an average of 36fps. The M5 chip, meanwhile, scored a much more palatable 57fps. The gaming performance of modern MacBooks means they can stake a claim to being genuine gaming machines, and these numbers – while not the best gaming benchmarks you’ll ever see – are a notable improvement.
The battery, though, may be one area where the M5 doesn’t quite live up to Apple’s own numbers. Early testing suggests that the M5 MacBook Pro’s battery life falls well short of Apple’s claimed 24 hours (at around the 18-hour mark), but we need to do further benchmarking to be sure of the result. Real-world performance often falls short of advertised battery life, and this was also something we experienced with the M4 MacBook Pro.
A good omen for the future
(Image credit: Future)
When Apple released the M5 MacBook Pro, it made an interesting move: it saved the M5 Pro and M5 Max models for a later date. Rumors suggest that they’ll arrive early in 2026, but for now at least, they’re nowhere to be seen.
But regardless of when those chips land, our testing of the M5 MacBook Pro bodes well for them. If the entry-level chip in the M5 series scored the highest single-core Cinebench result we’ve seen so far, its high-end siblings should be able to take those gains to new heights.
Apple’s marketing during the M5 launch put much of the focus on artificial intelligence (AI) performance, but that might be underselling the M5 chip’s other gains. Our own testing suggests that it’s a good option regardless of whether you’re interested in AI workloads.
While you’ll no doubt get excellent performance out of the M5 MacBook Pro, if you really need top-of-the-range output for your workflows, you might be better off waiting until the M5 Pro and M5 Max models are launched. When that happens, you could have even stronger options at your disposal.
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