If you only stress the CPU or the GPU, this behavior continues. The CPU cores can consume up to 75W for a brief moment, but the drop to around 50W. GPU load on the other hand results in up to 72W, which quickly levels off at 55W and finally at 44W, and we are already talking about the High Power mode. Under sustained workloads, the GPU performance is not stable, either, but it drops by around 10 %. The MacBook Pro 16 should once again perform better and show the true potential of the new M5 Max GPU with 40 cores, and we can check that soon with a test unit.

The current M5 generation is still based on the familiar 3 nm manufacturing process (now third generation) and we expect the upcoming M6 chips will switch to the 2 nm process at TMSC, which should improve the efficiency. However, these chips are getting so powerful that Apple should redesign their MacBooks and integrate more powerful cooling solutions. Please see our in-depth review of the MacBook Pro 14 with M5 Max for more information.