The cheapest way into a current M5 Mac and the one most people should look at first: fanless and silent, and within a few percent of the MacBook Pro on a single core. The base model's 8-core GPU manages Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p on low settings, not Ultra, and 16GB of memory holds a 7-8B local model comfortably but little more - pick 24GB or the 10-core GPU if you mean to game or run bigger models.
Against the line-up
Geekbench 6 CPU
Geekbench 6 CPU
Geekbench 6 GPU
Blender Benchmark
Geekbench AI
The whole MacBook Air line-up side by side, with prices
Every benchmark
Quoted from the publications that ran them; we don't test hardware ourselves. Figures from different publications were run on different systems and scenes, so compare within a row's source.
Cyberpunk 2077
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p Ultra |
19.5fps | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB 1920 x 1080, Ultra preset, FSR off |
Geekbench AI
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Core ML Neural Engine, Quantized |
57,340points | Macworld, Mar 13, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core GPU, 16GB, 1TB Quantized score, from Macworld's Geekbench AI Neural Engine chart. The base model has the 8-core GPU; the 16-core Neural Engine is the same. |
Blender Benchmark
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard run |
1,665samples/min | Blender Open Data, Oct 19, 2026 Apple M5 (GPU - 8 cores), Metal, Blender 5.2.0 Median score over the three scenes, 14 submitted runs. Blender Open Data lists by chip, not by Mac. |
Geekbench 6 CPU
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-core |
17,072points | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB Geekbench 6.7 |
| Single-core |
4,185points | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB Geekbench 6.7 |
Geekbench 6 GPU
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Metal |
66,910points | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB Geekbench 6.7 GPU, Metal |
3DMark Steel Nomad
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard run |
941points | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB |
Cinebench 2024
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-core |
957points | Notebookcheck, Mar 7, 2026 MacBook Air 13 M5, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB |
Sources
- Blender Open Data (results database)
- Macworld (review)
- Notebookcheck (review)
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