Apple's Upcoming M5 SoC Enters Mass Production

[GGforever]

Apple's M4 SoC was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews, particularly regarding the commendable performance and efficiency benefits it brought to the table. The chip first appeared in the OLED iPad Pro lineup last May, arriving in the company's MacBook Pro lineup only much later, giving Intel's Lunar Lake and AMD's Strix Point a run for their money. Now, it appears that the company is cognizant of the heat brought by AMD's Strix Halo, and has already commenced mass production for the first SoC in the M5 family - the vanilla M5, according to Korean news outlet ET News.

Just like last time, the M5 SoC has been repeatedly rumored to first arrive in the next-generation iPad Pro, scheduled to enter production sometime in the second half of this year. The MacBook Pro will likely be next-in-line for the M5 treatment, followed the rest of the lineup as per tradition. Interestingly, although Apple decided against using TSMC's 2 nm process for this year's chips, the higher-tier variants, including the M5 Pro and M5 Max are expected to utilize TSMC's SoIC-mH technology, allowing for vertical stacking of chips that should ideally benefit thermals, and possibly even allow for better and larger GPUs thanks to the separation of the CPU and GPU portions. Consequently, yields will also improve, which will allow Apple to bring costs down.




Since the chips are still well over six months away, there is no concrete information regarding the performance improvements that Apple will manage to squeeze out of the chips, considering the lack of a node shrink. Apple Silicon chips have always boasted exceptional CPU, especially single-threaded performance, although the same can't be said for their onboard GPUs. Thanks to 3D stacking, the M5 generation might bring a massive boost to GPU performance for the Pro, Max, and Ultra variants, which will surely be a welcome upgrade.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Daven]

Let's keep the non-Intel, non-Nvidia CPU-GPU gravy train going! We need multiple players providing multiple solutions. Apple Mx series is some of the best innovation to come out of the Intel doldrums era.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Let's keep the non-Intel, non-Nvidia CPU-GPU gravy train going! We need multiple players providing multiple solutions. Apple Mx series is some of the best innovation to come out of the Intel doldrums era.

Having multiple apple SOC devices at home they are great. The hardware is great and the build quality is great and sure you pay a premium but that's laughable now considering what people pay for mobos and GPUs that aren't really all that good unless you are doing AI/ML/DL.

 

[Baba]

Does TPU really need to turn into a rumor site? There are already rumor sites for apple like macrumors and 9to5mac. There is absolutely no tech info here. Stick to reviews and hard data. This is really going to water down your site.

 

[Daven]

Does TPU really need to turn into a rumor site? There are already rumor sites for apple like macrumors and 9to5mac. There is absolutely no tech info here. Stick to reviews and hard data. This is really going to water down your site.

TPU don't listen to this guy. Digital information pretty much costs the same no matter how much is disseminated and I enjoy the crazy conversations in the comments! I would even take more rumors!

 

[bonehead123]

Consequently, yields will also improve, which will allow Apple to bring costs down.

Yay for them, now if someone @apple (here's looking at you, Mr. Cook) could just figure out how to pass the costs savings on to the CONSUMERS, that would be great, but unfortunately, they do NOT make a habit of making their stuff affordable for most folks

 

[BArms]

I wonder if Apple or someone will ever come up with a way to emulate x86 at near-native speeds.