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This is last year’s M4 Pro Mac mini, and this is the new M5 Pro Mac mini. Day to day, these two feel exactly the same. A few of my tests were close, but in some the M5 Pro was drastically faster. It cut AI Denoise on 50 RAW photos from 8 minutes down to 5 minutes 10 seconds. And in one test, the M4 Pro actually beat it.
I ran both through my full set of real-world tests: Final Cut Pro, Lightroom Classic, Logic Pro, Xcode, Blender, local AI, and the usual benchmarks. By the end, you’ll know if the M5 Pro is worth the upgrade, or if the M4 Pro is still a smart buy.
Day to day these two feel identical. The M5 Pro pulls way ahead in AI and GPU-heavy work, so upgrade if that’s what you do. If your M4 Pro handles your work today, keep it. If you’re buying new, I’d get the M5 Pro for longevity.
- AI Denoise on 50 RAW photos went from 8:00 to 5:10 on the M5 Pro
- M5 Pro rendered Blender’s Classroom scene on the GPU in about 40% less time
- More than twice the Geekbench AI GPU score
- Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet standard on the M5 Pro
- Single-core is only about 2% apart, so everyday work feels the same
- The M4 Pro won Lightroom photo exports at every batch size
- 6K playback was a tie at 12 streams
- The M5 Pro starts at $1,699, and the M4 Pro launched at $1,399
Specs and price
A huge thanks to B&H for the M4 Pro Mac mini and for loaning me the M5 Pro. The M4 Pro mini I’m testing has 24GB of memory and a 1TB SSD. It’s the base M4 Pro chip, with a 12-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, and it launched at $1,399. The M5 Pro mini is the base model with a 15-core CPU, a 16-core GPU, 24GB of memory and a 512GB SSD, for $1,699.
| M5 Pro Mac mini | M4 Pro Mac mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $1,699 | $1,399 at launch |
| CPU | 15-core | 12-core |
| GPU | 16-core, Neural Accelerator in every core | 16-core |
| Memory | 24GB to start | 24GB to start |
| Memory bandwidth | 307GB/s | 273GB/s |
| Storage | 512GB and up | 512GB and up |
| Thunderbolt | Thunderbolt 5 | Thunderbolt 5 |
| Networking | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, 2.5Gb Ethernet (10Gb optional) | Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, Gigabit Ethernet (10Gb optional) |
| As I tested it | Base model, 24GB, 512GB ($1,699) | 24GB, 1TB |
If you’re not sure which Mac fits what you do, I offer free personalized Mac buying recommendations. Tell me what you do and I’ll help you pick the right one.
What changed
Memory bandwidth goes from 273GB/s on the M4 Pro to 307GB/s on the M5 Pro. Bandwidth is how fast the chip can move data in and out of memory. The bigger change is inside the GPU. The M5 Pro has a Neural Accelerator in every GPU core, and that’s where the biggest gains show up in the tests below.
The M5 Pro also gets newer wireless, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, up from Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 on the M4 Pro. And Ethernet is 2.5 gigabit standard now, up from 1 gigabit. Both still offer 10 gigabit as an upgrade.
Everyday use
Day to day, these two feel identical. Opening apps, browsing, editing, I couldn’t tell them apart.
The CPU scores back that up. Single-core is how fast one core finishes a task, and it’s the part you feel most when you’re clicking around. It’s only about 2% apart in Geekbench 7, 3,513 on the M5 Pro and 3,449 on the M4 Pro. Multi-core uses every core at once, and that’s where the M5 Pro pulls ahead, about 16% in Geekbench 7, 26,454 vs 22,834. So the differences only show up when you push it, and that’s what the rest of these tests do.
Real-world tests
Every chart below pulls straight from my Mac test results, so the numbers here match what I show in the video.
Final Cut Pro
Magnetic Mask uses AI to cut a person out of a clip. On an 18-second clip it was about 17% faster on the M5 Pro, 23.9 seconds vs 28.9 on the M4 Pro.
Next I stacked 6K clips on a timeline to see how many each Mac could play back at the same time. That one was a tie. Both played 12 at once.
Exports went to the M5 Pro. The 3-minute 4K export took 1:19 on the M5 Pro and 1:34 on the M4 Pro. The 30-minute 4K export took 12:51 on the M5 Pro and 14:45 on the M4 Pro.
Lightroom Classic
Initial previews are what Lightroom builds when you import, so you can start scrolling and culling. They were close, 18 seconds on the M5 Pro and 19.5 on the M4 Pro.
Here’s the surprise. I exported batches of RAW photos as full-quality JPEGs, and the M4 Pro won at every batch size. 50 photos took 10 seconds on the M4 Pro and 11.5 on the M5 Pro. 200 photos took 35.7 seconds vs 42. And 500 photos took 1:22 on the M4 Pro and 1:31 on the M5 Pro. My older M4 Pro test showed the same thing, so this isn’t a fluke.
AI Denoise is one of the heaviest things Lightroom does, and it flipped the result. One RAW photo took 6.7 seconds on the M5 Pro and 11.91 on the M4 Pro. On 50 photos, it was 5:10 vs 8:00. That’s the new Neural Accelerators doing the work.
Logic Pro
A bounce is when Logic exports every track down into one audio file. The M5 Pro was faster on both. A 64-track bounce took 12 seconds on the M5 Pro and 16.25 on the M4 Pro, and a 500-track bounce took 1:40 vs 1:55. I also added tracks until each Mac started dropping audio. The M5 Pro handled 328 tracks to the M4 Pro’s 269, about 22% more.
If you’re stuck between these two, send me what you do and I’ll give you a free personalized recommendation.
Xcode
Xcode is the app developers use to build apps, and this test times how long a project takes to compile. The Xcode 27 build took 105 seconds on the M5 Pro and 127 seconds on the M4 Pro, averaged over three runs.
Blender
This is the biggest gap in the whole comparison. Blender is a 3D app, and it renders scenes on the GPU. I’m using the third run of each scene, because the first run is always slower while Blender loads it. The M5 Pro rendered Classroom in about 40% less time, 18.47 seconds vs 30.58, and Barbershop in a third less time, 1:50 vs 2:45. On the CPU only, Classroom took 3:19 on the M5 Pro and 4:15 on the M4 Pro.
Local AI
LM Studio runs AI models right on your Mac, with nothing going to the cloud. I ran Google’s Gemma 3 4B on both and had it write 50 paragraphs about the Roman Empire. Tokens per second is how fast it writes once it gets going, and the M5 Pro was about 10% faster, 92.49 tokens per second vs 84.25. Time to first token is how long you wait before it starts answering, and the M4 Pro actually started sooner, 0.21 seconds vs 0.42 on the M5 Pro.
DiffusionBee is an AI image generator. With the same prompt on both, a cat working on a laptop with nachos on the side, the M5 Pro made the image in 8.7 seconds and the M4 Pro took 12.41 seconds.
Benchmarks
CPU and GPU
Single-core was close. Geekbench 7 was 3,513 vs 3,449, and Cinebench 2026 single-thread was 693 vs 639. Multi-core went to the M5 Pro by about 8% in Cinebench 2026, 5,330 vs 4,922, and about 16% in Geekbench 7, 26,454 vs 22,834. The GPU handles graphics, 3D and a lot of AI work, and that’s where it pulls away. The M5 Pro was about 38% faster in Cinebench 2026 GPU, 40,456 vs 29,294, and about 26% higher in Geekbench 7 Metal, 128,469 vs 102,300.
Geekbench AI
Geekbench AI runs AI tasks on the CPU, the GPU, and the Neural Engine, which is the part of the chip built just for AI. These are the quantized scores, which use smaller compressed models like most apps actually run. The CPU was nearly a tie, 7,809 vs 7,725. The Neural Engine was about 19% higher on the M5 Pro, 69,238 vs 58,295. On the GPU, the M5 Pro scored more than twice as high, 35,897 vs 15,571. That’s the clearest look at those Neural Accelerators.
SSD speed
In Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the M5 Pro’s 512GB SSD hit 5,000MB/s read and 5,000MB/s write. The M4 Pro’s 1TB SSD hit 5,100MB/s read and 6,200MB/s write. Keep in mind these are different storage sizes, so this is more 512GB vs 1TB than M5 Pro vs M4 Pro.
Should you upgrade?
The M5 Pro wins almost everywhere. The gains are biggest in anything that uses the GPU for AI, like AI Denoise, Blender and DiffusionBee. The M4 Pro still won Lightroom exports and tied on 6K playback.
If you have an M4 Pro mini and you do AI or GPU-heavy work, I’d upgrade. That’s where the M5 Pro pulls ahead. If your M4 Pro handles what you do today, skip it. For exports and everyday work, the jump is small.
If you’re buying new today, saving money on a discounted M4 Pro doesn’t hurt. But I’d get the M5 Pro for longevity. It’s the newer chip, with the faster GPU for AI, newer wireless, and it’ll stay current longer.
| Keep your M4 Pro if | Get the M5 Pro if |
|---|---|
| It handles what you do today | You do AI or GPU-heavy work |
| Your work is mostly exports and everyday tasks | You use AI Denoise, Blender or DiffusionBee a lot |
| You export a lot of photos in Lightroom | You’re buying new and want it to stay current longer |
| You don’t need the newer wireless | You want Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet standard |
The bottom line
Day to day, the M5 Pro and M4 Pro Mac minis feel exactly the same, because single-core is only about 2% apart. Where they split is the GPU. The Neural Accelerators in every GPU core made AI Denoise, Blender and DiffusionBee drastically faster, and the M5 Pro scored more than twice as high on the Geekbench AI GPU test. The M4 Pro still won Lightroom exports, and 6K playback was a tie. Thanks again to B&H for the M4 Pro Mac mini and for loaning me the M5 Pro.
If your M4 Pro handles your work, keep it. If you do AI or GPU-heavy work, or you’re buying new, get the M5 Pro. Every result I’ve ever tested is on my Mac test results page, and if you still need help picking, get a free recommendation from me.
Still deciding? If the M5 Pro is more than you need, check out the M6 Mac mini vs M5 Pro Mac mini. And if you’re thinking about going bigger, here’s the M5 Max Mac Studio vs M5 Pro Mac mini.
