Testing Apple's 2026 16-inch MacBook Pro, M5 Max, and its new "performance" cores

Apple's M5 Pro and M5 Max make deceptively large changes to how Apple's high-end laptop and desktop chips are built.

We've already covered those changes in some depth, but in essence: The M5 Pro and M5 Max are no longer monolithic chips with all the CPU and GPU cores and everything else packed into a single silicon die. Using an "all-new Fusion Architecture" like the one used to combine two Max chips into a single Ultra chip, Apple now splits the CPU cores (and other things) into one piece of silicon...