Apple brings its M5 Pro and Max silicon to the next MacBook Pro generation

It happened much later than we expected, but Apple's announcement of MacBook Pros with its M5 Pro and M5 Max chips has finally arrived. These more powerful variants on Apple's silicon will be available in the 14-inch and 16-inch models of the laptops. Pre-orders will open on March 4 with an expected ship date of March 11. The new 14-inch MacBook Pro can be kitted out with either an M5 Pro or M5 Max. The Pro option for the chip boasts a CPU with 15 or 18 CPU cores and 16 or 20 GPU cores. For the M5 Max, users will have 18 CPU cores along with 32 or 40 GPU cores. The base model with an M5 Pro has either 24 or 48GB of RAM and now starts with 1TB of storage, up from 512GB as was standard before. If you're eyeing the 16-inch MacBook Pro, it starts with the M5 Pro with 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. You can also get the same two M5 Max configurations as you can on the 14-inch model. Perhaps most significantly, Apple has raised prices on its entire MacBook Pro lineup. The 14-inch M5 model previously started at $1,599; it’s now priced at $1,699. At least you’re getting something for that cash, as Apple has doubled its base storage to 1TB. The same goes for the new M5 Pro and Max options. The 14-inch with the M5 Pro now starts at $2,199 instead of $1,999, while the 16-inch starts at a whopping $2,699 instead of $2,499. That 16-inch model comes with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage now as standard; that’s again double the storage space from the prior model. It's a little unusual for these heavy-duty upgrades to Apple's MacBook Pros to be announced so much later from the news of its latest silicon updates. The company debuted the M5 chip last fall as usual, but spent several months before it revealed these major hardware additions for housing it. And the M5 MacBook Pro that was announced in October shortly after the M5 chip news came with zero fanfare. Developing… This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apple-brings-its-m5-pro-and-max-silicon-to-the-next-macbook-pro-generation-141553279.html?src=rss