First M5 Max Benchmarks Reveal Fastest Apple CPU Yet

The first Geekbench 6 scores for Apple's newly announced M5 Max chip have appeared online, offering an early look at the performance of the company's latest high-end laptop processor.



Tested on a MacBook Pro with the model identifier "Mac17,7" and 128GB of unified memory, the M5 Max posted Geekbench 6 scores averaging 4,284 in single-core performance and 29,110 in multi-core across the first benchmark results. This makes it the fastest Apple laptop chip tested to date. For context, the 32-core M3 Ultra scores 27,727 in Geekbench 6 multi-core tests. Compared with the previous generation 16-core M4 Max, which scores 25,702, the M5 Max delivers roughly a 13 percent improvement in multi-core performance. The single-core score also edges past the 4,228 result shown for the base M5 chip.


On the graphics side, the 40-core GPU in the M5 Max posted an average Metal score of 224,665 across the first benchmark results. That is roughly 25 percent higher than the M4 Max's 179,223, while still trailing the M3 Ultra's 230,431 by a small margin. The results point to a significant graphics gain for a portable MacBook Pro.

Apple introduced the M5 Max earlier this week, highlighting a new Fusion Architecture that combines two dies into a single system on a chip. The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are currently available for pre-order and will begin arriving to customers on March 11.

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