The most power Apple fits in its smaller laptop: the M5 Max's 32- or 40-core GPU, up to 614GB/s of bandwidth and up to 128GB of memory - enough to run 70B-class local models a desktop GPU cannot hold. The small chassis is the catch: reviewers found it throttles under long full loads where the 16-inch does not, so heavy renderers and long AI jobs are better served by the bigger model.
Against the line-up
Geekbench 6 CPU
Geekbench 6 CPU
Geekbench 6 GPU
Blender Benchmark
The whole MacBook Pro 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 |
91.3fps | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB 1920 x 1080, Ultra preset, FSR off |
| For This Mac |
80.4fps | Tom's Hardware, Mar 9, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 128GB, 4TB, nano-texture At 1920 x 1200, so it is not in the 1080p column |
Local LLM (llama.cpp / Ollama)
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 2 7B Q4_0, Generation |
120tok/s | llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub), Oct 19, 2026 Apple M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 614GB/s (the 40-core option; the table has no 32-core figure) llama-bench tg128 (generating 128 tokens), all layers on the GPU. |
| Llama 2 7B Q4_0, Prompt processing |
3,220tok/s | llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub), Oct 19, 2026 Apple M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 614GB/s (the 40-core option; the table has no 32-core figure) llama-bench pp512 (reading a 512-token prompt), all layers on the GPU. |
Blender Benchmark
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard run |
6,462samples/min | Blender Open Data, Oct 19, 2026 Apple M5 Max (GPU - 32 cores), Metal, Blender 5.2.0 Median score over the three scenes, 11 submitted runs. Blender Open Data lists by chip, not by Mac. |
Geekbench 6 CPU
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-core | 29,415points | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB Geekbench 6.7 |
| 29,430points | Tom's Hardware, Mar 9, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 128GB, 4TB, nano-texture |
|
| Single-core | 4,322points | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB Geekbench 6.7 |
| 4,338points | Tom's Hardware, Mar 9, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 128GB, 4TB, nano-texture |
Geekbench 6 GPU
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Metal |
222,275points | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB Geekbench 6.7 GPU, Metal |
3DMark Steel Nomad
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Standard run | 3,924points | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB |
| 3,865points | Tom's Hardware, Mar 9, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 40-core GPU, 128GB, 4TB, nano-texture |
Cinebench 2024
| Setting | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-core |
2,073points | Notebookcheck, Mar 11, 2026 MacBook Pro 14 M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB |
Sources
- Blender Open Data (results database)
- Notebookcheck (review)
- Tom's Hardware (review)
- llama.cpp community benchmarks (GitHub) (results database)
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