Apple's M5 is faster, but results in shorter battery runtimes in daily situations

Apple's M5 SoC is the latest generation of Apple's own silicon and both the iPad Pro models as well as the base model of the MacBook Pro 14 are available with the new chip. We already reviewed both the iPad Pro 11 as well as the MacBook Pro 14 and also compared the new M5 with its rivals from AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm in our analysis article, both in terms of performance as well as efficiency. 

It is hardly surprising that the performance is excellent, because the old M4 already was a very powerful chip. However, we noticed that the Wi-Fi runtime is a bit shorter than before, both for the new iPad Pro as well as the MacBook Pro. All the other components are identical, so it has to be connected to the processor. A closer look quickly reveals that the M5 requires more power for the increased clock, both in single- as well as multi-core scenarios. This is particularly noticeable in everyday situations, which are defined by short periods of peak load. The difference is not huge, but the additional consumption adds up over many hours.

It is evident that Apple has arrived at the third generation of the 3 nm manufacturing process and higher clocks always require comparatively much power. Considering the higher consumption figures, passively cooled models like the iPad Pro or the upcoming MacBook Air will have more problems and the performance difference compared to devices with active cooling like the MacBook Pro will be a bit bigger than it was on the current M4 models. We are already eager to see how the upcoming M6 generation will perform, because they will most likely be the first 2 nm chips.

Please see our analysis of the new M5 SoC as well as our reviews of the iPad Pro 11 and the MacBook Pro 14 for more information.