- Apple’s M5 has appeared in a benchmark leak with Geekbench
- It posted an impressive single-core result for CPU performance, beating Qualcomm’s powerful Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme SoC.
- The M5 is also shown to outperform some beefy desktop CPUs, but we need to tread carefully here.
If you’re wondering how fast Apple’s new M5 chip could be, the answer is pretty snappy, according to rumors.
As Tom’s Hardware reports, the M5, which powers the new 14-inch MacBook Pro (and the updated iPad Pro, as well as the Vision Pro), is actually faster. than Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme for single-core performance, according to a leaked Geekbench result that Tech Info highlighted in X.
iPad Pro M5 (version 10c) vs Macbook Pro M5iPad Pro M5 is clocked at 4.43 GHzMacBook Pro M5 has a P Core clock speed of 4.61 GHziPad Pro: 4.1K ST and 16.3K MTMacBook Pro: 4.2K ST and 17.8K MTWaiting to take a look at the power consumption graph….. pic.twitter.com/UQT2HpPhmuOctober 17, 2025
Sprinkle a little seasoning on it, but as you can see from the post above, the comparison in The MacBook Pro’s M5 is shown running at 4.61 GHz compared to the iPad Pro’s 4.43 GHz.
What’s more interesting, however, is taking the results of the 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro (4,263 points in the single-core CPU test and 17,862 in the multi-core test) and comparing them to other chips.
That’s exactly what Tom’s Hardware did, noting that the Snapdragon
Tom’s Hardware also compared the M5’s scores to some powerful desktop PC processors, based on those chips’ averages from the Geekbench database (calculated by our sister site), with the following results.
|
UPC |
Single core result |
Multicore result |
|
apple m5 |
4,263 |
17,862 |
|
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D |
3,399 |
22,093 |
|
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X |
3,385 |
21,431 |
|
Intel Core i9-14900KS |
3,239 |
23,187 |
|
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K |
3,217 |
22,739 |
As you can see, the single core scores are revealing, to say the least, with the Apple M5 leaves those desktop giants in the dust.
However, multi-core performance is very different and before we get carried away, let’s dive a little deeper into these comparisons.
Analysis: getting the best out of the Elite Extreme, more or less
First of all, we must be careful with any leaked benchmark and also remember that it is only a benchmark and, furthermore, a single result for the M5, so it’s not a representative average like the desktop CPU scores that Tom compares to Apple’s new SoC.
For example, if we look at the fastest score on the single-core Geekbench test for Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K (as opposed to average), is 4,306, so it’s just a touch faster than the M5. Still, it’s wildly impressive that the M5 nearly matches this flagship Intel processor; there is no doubt about that.
In terms of multi-core, the M5 trails the big desktop players by 20% to 30%, but those processors have a much higher core count than the 10-core ones, of course. The Snapdragon
Still, overall, there’s no denying that based on this glimpse of the M5’s performance (and it’s just a fleeting glimpse, and just a leak), Apple seems to have once again found a winner with its own SoCs.
And of course, beefier M5 models are still to come with more cores and better multi-core performance; There will be some excitement surrounding the reveal of the M5 Pro and Max.
