Apple Announces "Fusion Architecture" With M5 Pro & M5 Max
Apple announced today the new Fusion Architecture with the M5 Pro and M5 Max SoCs that also feature a next-generation GPU.
Apple announced the M5 Pro and M5 Max for powering the new MacBook Pro laptops. The Apple Fusion Architecture combines two dies into a single SoC. This includes the CPU, GPU, Media Engine, Unified Memory Controller, Neural Engine, and Thunderbolt 5.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a new 18-core CPU architecture, "super cores" as what they call "the world's fastest CPU core", and up to 30% better CPU performance in total for pro workloads. The 18 core models rely on six super cores and 12 new performance cores.
On the graphics side is up to a 40-core GPU with over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to prior generation Apple graphics.
Those curious about the new M5 Pro and M5 Max can learn more at Apple.com.
For Linux users it will likely still be a while before seeing any M5 Pro or M5 Max powered devices running Linux. The Asahi Linux effort remains largely for M1/M2 SoCs at this point with M3 still being brought up followed by M4. It's still likely to be some time before the M3/M4 support is polished and also for getting those patches then upstreamed from Asahi Linux to the mainline kernel. Considering the Apple kernel graphics driver still is not in the mainline kernel and all of the recent M3/M4/M5 GPU improvements, on that front is also likely to be quite a while before things settle down there. So these new M5 Pro and M5 Max SoCs are exciting for Apple macOS users, but on the Linux side it's still likely to be a while before seeing any reliable support.
Apple announced the M5 Pro and M5 Max for powering the new MacBook Pro laptops. The Apple Fusion Architecture combines two dies into a single SoC. This includes the CPU, GPU, Media Engine, Unified Memory Controller, Neural Engine, and Thunderbolt 5.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max feature a new 18-core CPU architecture, "super cores" as what they call "the world's fastest CPU core", and up to 30% better CPU performance in total for pro workloads. The 18 core models rely on six super cores and 12 new performance cores.
On the graphics side is up to a 40-core GPU with over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to prior generation Apple graphics.
Those curious about the new M5 Pro and M5 Max can learn more at Apple.com.
For Linux users it will likely still be a while before seeing any M5 Pro or M5 Max powered devices running Linux. The Asahi Linux effort remains largely for M1/M2 SoCs at this point with M3 still being brought up followed by M4. It's still likely to be some time before the M3/M4 support is polished and also for getting those patches then upstreamed from Asahi Linux to the mainline kernel. Considering the Apple kernel graphics driver still is not in the mainline kernel and all of the recent M3/M4/M5 GPU improvements, on that front is also likely to be quite a while before things settle down there. So these new M5 Pro and M5 Max SoCs are exciting for Apple macOS users, but on the Linux side it's still likely to be a while before seeing any reliable support.