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Apple's M5 Max Chip Achieves a New Record in First Benchmark Result

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The first Geekbench 6 result for a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip surfaced today, and Apple has achieved record-breaking performance.

Apple-M5-Pro-M5-Max-chips.jpg

In this unconfirmed result, the M5 Max with an 18-core CPU achieved a score of 29,233 for multi-core CPU performance, which tops the 27,726 score achieved by the Mac Studio's M3 Ultra chip with a 32-core CPU. M5 Max is now the fastest Apple silicon chip ever, and it even topped every other consumer PC processor in the Geekbench database.

In terms of multi-core CPU performance, the M5 Max is up to 5% faster than the M3 Ultra, and up to 14% to 15% faster than the M4 Max chip with a 16-core CPU.

Mac ModelMulti-Core CPU Score
MacBook Pro (M5 Max)29,233
Mac Studio (M3 Ultra)27,726
MacBook Pro (M4 Max)25,702
MacBook Pro (M4 Pro)22,490
Mac Studio (M2 Ultra)21,410
MacBook Pro (M3 Max)20,960
Mac Studio (M1 Ultra)18,434
MacBook Air (M5)17,073
MacBook Pro (M3 Pro)15,260
MacBook Pro (M2 Max)14,740
MacBook Air (M4)14,731
MacBook Pro (M2 Pro)14,451
MacBook Pro (M1 Max)12,345
MacBook Pro (M1 Pro)12,345
MacBook Air (M3)12,020
MacBook Air (M2)9,709
MacBook Neo (A18 Pro)8,668
MacBook Air (M1)8,342


As for single-core CPU performance, the M5 Max with an 18-core CPU achieved a score of 4,268 in this single Geekbench result, which is line with the regular M5 chip in the base model 14-inch MacBook Pro released back in October. This is the highest single-core score of any consumer PC processor ever, topping the AMD Ryzen 9 series.

As for graphics, the M5 Max with a 40-core GPU achieved impressive Metal scores of 218,772 in one result and 232,718 in another. These scores are anywhere from 5% to 10% lower than the highest-end M3 Ultra's average Metal score of 245,053, and a little more than 20% higher than the highest-end M4 Max's average Metal score of 191,600.

All in all, the M5 Max offers up to 15% faster CPU performance and up to 20% faster GPU performance compared to the M4 Max, in line with Apple's advertised figures.

MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max are available to pre-order now, and they will begin arriving to customers and launch in stores on March 11.

Article Link: Apple's M5 Max Chip Achieves a New Record in First Benchmark Result
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/05/m5-max-geekbench-benchmarks/
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Mine is still showing arriving 18th and I ordered giga fast, but i did BTO 128 memory and 40 core gpu. that configuration may have been made in lower production quantity. still hoping it ships sooner. when i ordered M3 max in 2023, it also showed 1 week delay but that cleared up before shipping.
 
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CrysisDeu said:
The improvement over M4 max is only 14%? That’s not a lot. In the worst intel days the improvements are around 5%
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well, that's likely due to fact of them deciding to use less performance cores and achieve a small gain over a larger one to improve battery instead. that's theory anyways. remember an m3 max is 12 performance and only 4 effiicency, this thing is basically 6 performance and 12 "balanced" cores which is to say they're supposedly better than efficiency but not as good as performance cores.

could you imagine if they actually did have 12 performance (ie super cores now) and 6 balanced? but i imagine with how delayed M5 was too they gotta save some oomf for M6 too.
 
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Great result!

Should be noted that the multi-core improvement will be greater in other benchmarks/applications (most of the sub tests in Geekbench 6 don’t scale well at these core counts)

The Geekbench 5 result will be interesting. M3 Ultra 32C scores ~42000 in GB5 multi-core and M4 Max 16C scores ~28000. I’m guessing the M5 Max will get into the ~35000 range in GB5.
 
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CrysisDeu said:
The improvement over M4 max is only 14%? That’s not a lot. In the worst intel days the improvements are around 5%
Click to expand...
Apple focused on CPU gains with the M4 and GPU gains with the M5. While the CPU increase is modest the GPU increase should be substantial; the base M4's Geekbench 6 Metal score averaged 54000 vs. the M5's average 74000, which is almost a 40% increase.
 
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iamaydo said:
I don’t think people are willing to pay the price for memory right now to run local LLMs.
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I think you may be incorrect. The “people”—in this case, it is mostly companies, large and small—who are paying what was just a few years ago considered an obscene amount of money on compute capacity don’t have a problem doing just this. And without any real pathway to a near-term return on investment. That is why Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company.

This is all going to end badly for the majority of these companies, but it is all-steam-spend-ahead for now. These companies are cutting employees by the hundreds or thousands if they need to in order to allow for this, too.
 
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All in all, the M5 Max offers up to 15% faster CPU performance and up to 20% faster GPU performance compared to the M4 Max, in line with Apple's advertised figures.

Apple Newsroom quotes below.

"The new CPU architecture offers up to 15 percent higher multithreaded performance when compared to M4 Max."

Geekbench shows around 14% to 15% ✅

"The graphics performance for M5 Max is up to 20 percent higher than M4 Max."

Geekbench shows around 20% to 21% ✅
 
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I remember the early days of the Intel 386 chips as a teen and asking the store clerk if the new 486 chips were in yet, being told there is nothing anyone could want from the 486 that 386 couldn't do. That no one would ever need more computer power than what a 386 had to offer. But with more headroom developers always quickly find ways to up the ante.

Apple is in a good place having taken full control over their chips and moving as they see the puck going, especially as their chips are great for AI tasks in such small personal computers. The Mac Mini's being a good example. That's why it's always funny listening to those that whine and moan about why they don't need need more powerful chips while they accept as commonplace all the benefits and capabilities of the most advanced chips Apple has ever created.
 
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I have M1 Pro 16", Im waiting for the M6 if thats when the redesign is; I dont need that much power so as good as this sounds to upgrade, not really worth it in my personal situation. Love all the improvements adding up.
 
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My Intel i9 MacBook Pro was feeling slow as heck recently with Tahoe... even slower when I saw these new MacBook Pro releases. However with 26.3.1 release somehow all the slowness got fixed? I no longer feel the need for a new Mac.
 
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