Apple's M5 Max in the MacBook Pro 16 is around 15 % faster compared to the MacBook Pro 14
During our review of the MacBook Pro 14 with Apple's new high-end SoC M5 Max including the fastest 40-core GPU, we experienced issues with fluctuating CPU performance (even in the High Power mode) and the graphics performance was not stable, either. The CPU performance was also not much better compared to the old M4 Max, which we have shown in our CPU analysis. Due to thermal limitations, we speculated that the M5 Max will perform better in the larger MacBook Pro 16 and now we have a corresponding review unit of the MBP 16 with M5 Max.
We have already performed some initial benchmarks, and the performance is better for both the CPU as well as the GPU. So far, we have not noticed any performance fluctuations we experienced on the 14-inch model.
| Cinebench 2024 - CPU Multi Core | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 2026 M5 Max | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 14 2026 M5 Max | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Max (High Performance) | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Max | |
| 3DMark - Steel Nomad Score | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 2026 M5 Max | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 14 2026 M5 Max | |
| Apple MacBook Pro 16 M4 Max | |
The Cinebench 2024 multi-core test shows an advantage of 18 % over the M5 Max in the MacBook Pro 14 and also the old M4 Max in the MacBook Pro 16. The MBP 16 also manages this result in the Automatic mode, which is also much quieter. The High Performance mode does not increase the performance in a single run, but we will still test if it affects the sustained performance. During one benchmark run, the CPU cores consumed 78/65 Watts and therefore much more compared to the MBP 14.
The graphics performance is better as well, and the current 3DMark Steel Nomad test shows an advantage of 12 % for the M5 Max in the MBP 16 compared to the M5 Max in the MBP 14 and 21 % over the old M4 Max in the MBP 16. We can also already say that the GPU performance is completely stable under sustained workloads, which was not the case for the smaller model (-7.4 % in High Performance mode, -25 % in Automatic mode).
We will obviously perform additional tests, but our initial benchmark results already show that the M5 Max is a much better fit for the larger MacBook Pro 16 and the performance difference compared to the MacBook Pro 14 is significant.
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