With the new year underway, attention is already turning to Apple’s next wave of high-end chips expected in the first half of the year: the M5 Pro, M5 Max, and M5 Ultra. If early performance talk is even close to accurate, the M5 Max could be a major leap for Apple Silicon—especially for gamers who want strong 1080p performance without relying on a traditional discrete graphics card.
The excitement stems from a community-posted comparison that estimates how the M5 Max might perform in demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The estimates build on how prior Apple chip generations have improved over time, then apply that typical uplift to predict what the upcoming M5 Max could deliver. While it’s not an official benchmark and shouldn’t be treated like final performance data, it offers an interesting preview of where Apple’s fastest consumer chip could land.
Estimated M5 Max gaming performance at 1080p Ultra settings
If these numbers end up being even remotely close, the headline is simple: M5 Max could dramatically outperform M4 Max in gaming, with gains approaching 50% in the two titles cited. It’s also notable that the estimates place the M5 Max in the same general neighborhood as powerful NVIDIA GPUs—edging out a laptop-class RTX 5070 Ti in Cyberpunk 2077, and trading blows depending on the game.
Why the M5 Max might jump so far ahead
One reason this rumored leap sounds plausible is that Apple may not need to radically change the core counts to get meaningful improvements. Even if Apple sticks with a similar configuration to the M4 Max, architectural upgrades and efficiency tuning can translate into higher sustained performance. There’s also the possibility that Apple uses the headroom to scale GPU cores further, which could push graphics results even higher—though that detail isn’t confirmed.
Important caveats before taking these results seriously
As interesting as these estimated benchmarks are, there are major unanswered questions that could significantly change the real-world story:
1) GPU configuration is unknown
The post doesn’t confirm the M5 Max GPU core count. Even small changes in GPU cores, clocks, or memory bandwidth can swing gaming results.
2) Upscaling and frame generation details aren’t specified
Settings like MetalFX upscaling and frame generation can make a huge difference to frame rates, especially in demanding games. Without knowing whether these were used, it’s hard to compare directly against other GPUs.
3) Ray tracing and typical “realistic” workloads are unclear
The performance impact of ray tracing (or more demanding modes like path tracing) can be massive. If ray tracing was enabled or disabled—or if certain optimizations were used—that could explain high numbers that might not reflect a strict native render workload.
The bottom line: the M5 Max is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated Apple chips yet, and these estimates suggest a substantial gaming uplift over the M4 Max. Still, until real devices ship and independent testing confirms settings like ray tracing, upscaling, and frame generation, it’s best to view these figures as an early projection—not a guarantee.
