MacBook Pro M5 Review: 240% Performance Gains Over M1 in Five Years, Crushing the M1 Ultra Mac Studio for $1,600

Snazzy Labs

The Initial Impression of the M5 [0:00]

• The M5 is approximately 20% faster than the M4 in CPU performance and about 30% faster in GPU workloads.
• The presenter acknowledges the common sentiment that Apple Silicon updates have become "boring" due to their predictable, incremental nature [Image 1].
  • He argues that this predictability is, in fact, "fantastic" because it signifies stability and reliability, a stark contrast to the previous Intel era.

The Mac's "Dumpster Fire" Era (Pre-Apple Silicon) [0:34]

• The video emphasizes that users have forgotten how problematic Macs were before Apple Silicon [Image 8][Image 9].
  • Performance bumps were not guaranteed, and significant issues often accompanied new releases [Image 12][Image 13].
• The 2013 "Trash Can" Mac Pro [1:02]
  • This model was marketed as upgradable and modular but was not [Image 18].
  • By 2017, it had gone four years without an update, spec bump, or price drop, making Apple's most powerful computers laptops rather than desktops [Image 19].
• The 2016-2019 MacBook Pros: A Thermal and Design Disaster [1:22]
  • Defective Butterfly Keyboards [1:27]
    • These keyboards were so problematic that Apple eventually settled a $50 million class-action lawsuit [Image 22].
  • Thermal Disasters [1:35]
    • Shipped with 28W TDP CPUs and discrete GPUs pushing 35W, combined with inadequate cooling [Image 20][Image 24][Image 27].
    • MacBooks from this era would thermal throttle below their base clock speeds under sustained load, even in air-conditioned rooms [Image 28].
    • The 15-inch models with dual-fan designs could theoretically manage one component, but taxing both CPU and GPU would cause the system to fail [Image 32].
  • Controversial USB-C Only Design [2:41]
    • Apple went all-in on USB-C, which was problematic due to an immature ecosystem of expensive, ineffectual, and unreliable dongles [Image 34].
  • Negligible Performance Uplifts [4:26]
    • The 2017 Kaby Lake update offered negligible performance with the same thermal and keyboard issues.
    • The 2018 Coffee Lake introduced more cores (including a 6-core 15-inch model), but throttling often negated any performance gains [Image 53], and it still used the problematic keyboard [Image 59].
    • Even base model machines would be so thermally constrained, that some users resorted to extreme measures to cool them [Image 54].
    • The 2019 models offered slightly better thermals and an 8-core i9 option, but even the i9 struggled to sustain advertised clock speeds [Image 56][Image 57].
  • The 16-inch MacBook Pro (Late 2019) [5:05]
    • The only "halfway decent" machine in this era, it fixed the keyboard, had a bigger battery, better speakers, and improved cooling for the i9 chip and AMD Navi GPUs [Image 51].
    • However, it was still extremely heavy (nearly 5 pounds) and hot, doubling as a "space heater."
• Neglected Mac Product Lines [5:34]
  • While MacBooks received some attention, other lines like the Mac Mini (ignored from 2014-2018) were completely neglected [Image 73].
  • The 2014 Mac Mini was a downgrade from the 2012 model due to soldered RAM and the removal of the quad-core i7 option [Image 74][Image 75].
  • The base model 21.5-inch iMac was still shipping with a spinning platter hard drive in August 2020, making it feel ancient [Image 77].
  • The MacBook Air went essentially unchanged for five years (2013-2018) with minimal performance improvements (5% single-core, 15% multi-core) [Image 79][Image 81].
• Apple's Public Apology for Mac Pro Neglect [5:47]
  • In 2017, Apple invited journalists to a roundtable to pre-announce a new Mac Pro, admitting the 2013 model was thermally constrained and unupgradable [Image 65].
  • The new iMac Pro launched as a stop-gap in 2017, praised merely for "existing" and having more thermal headroom, but it was still expensive and difficult to repair [Image 67][Image 69][Image 71].
  • There was even a Wall Street Journal article suggesting Apple should kill off the Mac, indicating a shift in focus to the iPad [Image 83][Image 84][Image 85][Image 86][Image 87].

The Apple Silicon Revolution [7:46]

• The M1 chip was a revolution, transforming neglected products like the Mac Mini and MacBook Air [Image 89][Image 91].
  • It offered 50% faster single-core performance and literally four times faster multi-core performance than the highest-end 2020 Intel MacBook Air.
  • The GPU was five times faster than Intel's Iris Plus Graphics.
  • These improvements came with nearly double the battery life in the same chassis and the removal of the fan entirely in some models.
• Post-M1 Generations [9:27]
  • M2, M3, and M4 generations have consistently brought meaningful improvements across the entire lineup, not just flagship models [Image 93][Image 94][Image 99][Image 100].
  • Consistent updates, predictable cadence, and reliable performance gains are now the norm [Image 102][Image 105].

M5 Performance Benchmarks and Value Proposition [10:20]

• CPU Performance [10:29]
  • Multi-core performance is 20% higher than M4 in real-world and synthetic tests [Image 107][Image 108].
  • Single-core gains are around 15-17%.
• GPU Performance [10:38]
  • 35% average increase in synthetic benchmarks.
  • Gaming shows even bigger gains with improved ray tracing and enhanced shader cores.
  • Death Stranding runs at 4K max settings, holding around 40 frames per second on a base model MacBook Pro [Image 110].
• Neural Engine and SSD Performance [11:08]
  • Massive improvements to the Neural Engine with nearly two times performance gains in AI tasks (local LLMs, image generation) [Image 96][Image 111].
  • Increased memory bandwidth and PCIe 5 equivalent SSDs are three times faster than M4 SSDs [Image 112][Image 113].
• Overall Value [11:24]
  • The base M5 MacBook Pro ($1,600) universally outperforms the four-year-old, $4,000 M1 Ultra Mac Studio [Image 104][Image 117][Image 118].
  • The overall performance gains since the M1 (five years ago) are 240% for the MacBook Pro, compared to a mere 75% in the Intel era over a similar period (2014-2019) [Image 115].
  • This represents generational performance leaps, not incremental ones.
• Long-term Viability [13:00]
  • Many users with M1 Macs still don't feel the urgency to upgrade because the M1 was so capable, and still more than sufficient for most users five years later [Image 120].
  • This is the opposite of the Intel era, where frequent upgrades were almost necessary to keep up.
  • The current M5 offers such longevity that users can expect to be satisfied with it in 2030 and beyond.

Future Outlook [13:41]

• While Apple Silicon is "boring" in its predictability and reliability, the speaker suggests that other hardware aspects like the display and webcam could see improvements (OLED, better webcam).
• Thermal headroom in the current chassis is limited, but changes could offer even better cooling in more compact designs.
• The speaker concludes that the current state of Macs is a welcome change from the Intel era, offering incredible value and performance at its price point.