Rumor | Rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro may use AMD 5500M

The rumor mill is buzzing like a hive about the 16 MacBook Pro. We recently published an article detailing an image pulled straight from macOS Catalina 10.15.1 showing part of the possible MacBook Pro, Now, a new rumor states that the Apple laptop may use AMD’s Radeon RX 5300M and/or Radeon RX 5500M GPUs.

Before we start, please know that this is all wild speculation coming from a single source (MacRumors) and has not been verified. However, it makes sense for Apple to use the latest AMD mobile GPUs considering its long history with Team Red. MacBook Pros have used AMD graphics exclusively since 2015, and macOS builds since that time have featured support for those GPUs.

The rumor concerning the latest AMD GPUs appearing in the currently-unconfirmed 16-inch MacBook Pro comes from a MacRumors contributor who claims to have found a string of code in macOS 10.15.1 that references the “Radeon RX 5500/5500M.” Again, this rumor has yet to be confirmed, but MacRumors has a decent track record when it comes to Apple leaks and speculation.

If Apple indeed uses the RX 5500M in its next Pro laptops, that may be bad news for performance enthusiasts. In our preliminary testing of the MSI Alpha 15, the RX 5500M comes in a little bit behind the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Max-Q, which is a mid-range GPU. However, keep in mind that the MacBook Pro is usually a productivity monster thanks to the software optimizations within macOS and Apple’s homegrown software.

As with all rumors, we’ll have to wait and see if this one comes true. What are your thoughts? Will Apple stay with AMD and opt for the RX 5500M, or will the Cupertino Colossus come back to Nvidia for its next Pro-level laptops? Let us know in the comments.