- Apple M5 appears in leaked benchmarks via Geekbench
- It delivered an impressive single-core CPU performance result, beating the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme SoC.
- The M5 has also been shown to outperform some powerful desktop processors, but you have to tread carefully here.
If you're wondering how fast New Apple M5 chip maybe the answer is really quite unpleasant, if rumors are anything to go by.
How Tom's Hardware ReportsM5, which is the engine new MacBook Pro 14 inches (and updated iPad Pro and also Vision Pro), actually faster how New Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme from Qualcomm for single-core performance, based on leaked Geekbench scores that Tech Info highlighted on the X.
iPad Pro M5 (version 10c) vs Macbook Pro M5 iPad Pro M5 clocks at 4.43 GHz. The MacBook Pro M5 runs at a clock speed of 4.61 GHz. Clock speed P Core. iPad Pro: 4.1k ST and 16.3k MTM. MacBook Pro: 4.2k ST and 17.8k MTWWanting to look at the power consumption graph….. pic.twitter.com/UQT2HpPhmuOctober 17, 2025
Add some spice, but as you can see in the post above, the X comparison is between the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro with the M5 chip (10-core), where the laptop wins, showing the benefits of better cooling and cooling with the laptop body. The M5 in the MacBook Pro runs at 4.61 GHz, compared to 4.43 GHz in the iPad Pro.
What's even more interesting, however, is to take the 14-inch MacBook Pro M5's results – 4,263 points in the single-core CPU test and 17,862 points in the multi-core test – and compare them with other chips.
That's exactly what Tom's Hardware did, noting that the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme scored a single-core score of 4080 in Qualcomm's official tests, meaning the M5 beats it here by almost 5%.
Tom's Hardware also compared the M5's scores against some powerful desktop processors, based on the average scores for those chips in the Geekbench database (calculated by our sister site), and came up with the following results.
|
CPU |
Single core result |
Multi-core result |
|
Apple M5 |
4263 |
17,862 |
|
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D |
3399 |
22,093 |
|
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X |
3385 |
21 431 |
|
Intel Core i9-14900KS |
3239 |
23 187 |
|
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K |
3217 |
22,739 |
As you can see, the results of single-core computing are, to say the least, amazing. Apple The M5 leaves these desktop giants behind.
However, the performance of multi-core processors is very different, and before we get too carried away, let's dive a little deeper into these comparisons.
Analysis: Taking over Elite Extreme is something like
First of all, we must be careful with any test leaks and remember that this is just one test, and moreover, just a test. lonely The result is for the M5 – so it's not a representative average like the desktop processor scores that Tom compares to Apple's new SoC.
For example, if we look at the fastest single-core Geekbench score for IntelCore Ultra 9 285K (as opposed to average), that's 4306 – so slightly faster than the M5. However, the fact that the M5 comes close to matching this flagship Intel processor is very impressive; there is no doubt about it.
In terms of multi-core performance, the M5 lags the major desktop manufacturers by 20-30%, but these processors of course have a much higher core count than 10-core ones. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme also beats the M5 in multi-core mode, scoring 23,491, so it's 30% faster here (but don't forget the chip has 18 cores).
Overall, though, there's no denying that based on this glimpse of the M5's performance (and it's just a glimpse and just a leak), Apple appears to be back in the lead with its own SoCs.
And, of course, there will be more powerful M5 models with more cores and better multi-core performance – the arrival of the M5 Pro and Max will cause some excitement.
