Apple M5 Production Kicks Off, But It Won’t Be A Massive Upgrade

Production on the Apple M5 chips has begun. According to a report from Korean publication ET News, mass production of the chipset has kicked off. The M4 chips made their debut in May 2024, so the timing of the M5’s production makes sense. However, you might be disappointed if you hoped the M5 would be a massive upgrade over the M4.

Using TSMC’s 3nm process

According to the report, the M5 chip is built on TSMC’s 3nm process. This is similar to the M3 and M4, which also used TSMC’s 3nm process. However, the difference is that the M5 will use a more advanced process than its predecessors.

Now, Apple will adopt TSMC’s System-on-Integrated-Chips-molding-Horizontal (SoIC-mH) technology which stacks the chips vertically. Vertically stacking chips improves heat control and performance. It could also help with space optimization, which, in theory, could allow Apple to fit in larger batteries or other components.

The report claims that we can look forward to 5-10% power efficiency improvements and performance by 5% over the M4. Those are hardly impressive figures, but they are still improvements nonetheless.

Bottleneck issues

The M1 was a revolutionary jump compared to Intel’s x86 chips. The massive performance improvements were evidence that Apple was onto something. Subsequent M-series chips have seen more modest improvements. We’re sure some of you have seen videos where some YouTubers recommend older Apple Silicon Mac computers over newer models.

This is because the performance gains haven’t been that huge from generation to generation. Buying an older and cheaper Mac is a smarter move unless you need that raw processing and graphical power. The relatively minor performance gains in the M5 may indicate that Apple is approaching a bottleneck in silicon efficiency.

That being said, this type of bottleneck is normal in technology. We’ve seen this with Intel chips and we’re also seeing it in the chipsets in our smartphones. After all, one can only make so many improvements based on current technologies.

Worth upgrading?

Despite not offering a drastic leap in performance, the M5 is still going to be an upgrade for some users. Based on past releases, we expect improvements in efficiency, AI performance, and heat management. This means that if you’re coming from a much older Apple Silicon computer, like the M1 or M2, the M5 could be a worthwhile upgrade.

However, those coming from the M3 or M4 might not find the improvements as compelling. Apple will most likely introduce new M5 products in the first half of the year. This could include an M5-powered iPad Pro and MacBook Air. The MacBook Air lineup hasn’t received the M4 upgrade yet, so it might end up skipping that in favor of the M5.

The company will also likely introduce the M5 Pro, Max, and Ultra chipsets later this year. Those chipsets will find their way into Apple’s more powerful Macs, such as the MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and Mac Studio.