Apple’s next wave of Apple Silicon performance is starting to take shape, and the latest numbers suggest the M5 Pro could end up being the real sweet spot for many MacBook Pro buyers. After early tests showed the M5 Max posting solid gains over the M4 Max—and even outperforming the high-end M3 Ultra in some Geekbench 6 runs—the spotlight has now shifted to Apple’s “middle” chip. Based on newly surfaced benchmarks, “middle” might be underselling it.
A MacBook Pro identified as Mac17,9 appeared in Geekbench 6 with an M5 Pro configuration featuring an 18-core CPU and 48GB of unified memory. The results are eye-catching: 4,242 in single-core and 28,111 in multi-core. That puts it uncomfortably close to the more expensive M5 Max, which scored 4,268 single-core and 29,233 multi-core in the same benchmark.
In practical terms, the M5 Max is only about 0.6% faster in single-core and roughly 4% ahead in multi-core—differences that many users may barely notice in everyday creative workloads, app launches, or general productivity. For buyers who want top-tier performance without paying top-tier pricing, this is exactly the kind of gap that makes the M5 Pro look like a value play.
One reason the M5 Pro is landing so close to the M5 Max appears to be Apple’s new Fusion Architecture. With this design, the M5 Pro can carry the same number of efficiency (“super”) cores and performance cores as the M5 Max, helping it compete aggressively even against older chips that previously sat higher in the product stack.
Compared to the M4 Max (16-core CPU), the M5 Pro is ahead in both single-core and multi-core scores. And while the M3 Ultra (32-core CPU) still edges past the M5 Pro slightly in one of the results listed—28,169 multi-core versus the M5 Pro’s 28,111—the fact that an 18-core laptop-class chip is trading blows with a workstation-class part at all is a big deal. Interestingly, the M3 Ultra’s single-core score is clearly lower at 3,247, reinforcing how much Apple has improved per-core speed with the M5 generation.
Here’s how the benchmark results stack up in Geekbench 6:
M5 Pro (18-core CPU)
Single-core: 4,242
Multi-core: 28,111
M5 Max (18-core CPU)
Single-core: 4,268
Multi-core: 29,233
M4 Max (16-core CPU)
Single-core: 4,049
Multi-core: 26,509
M3 Ultra (32-core CPU)
Single-core: 3,247
Multi-core: 28,169
On the pricing side, pre-orders have reportedly gone live for M5 Pro MacBook Pro models. The lineup starts at $2,199 for a configuration with a 15-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of unified memory, and a 1TB SSD. Stepping up to the 18-core CPU version pushes the price to $2,799. That may still feel steep, but it’s notably easier to justify when the base M5 Max MacBook Pro reportedly starts at $3,899.
If these early Geekbench 6 results hold up across more tests, the M5 Pro could become the go-to option for creators, developers, and power users who want near-flagship performance while avoiding the biggest jump in cost. And with competing chips like Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme generation on the horizon, Apple’s strong showing here signals the next round of laptop performance competition is about to get very interesting.
