All 228 MacBook Pro M5 builds, sortable side by side. Apple's configurator only lets you see one at a time. Made with ❤ over a weekend.
Independent reference. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. Always verify current pricing at apple.com/shop.
| Type | Part # | Size | Color | Display | Chip | CPU | GPU | Memory | Storage | Total USD | Availability |
|---|
All numbers below are derived from the same publicly listed prices on apple.com that drive the other tabs, snapshotted on May 3, 2026. Use these as a starting point for your own decision; verify against apple.com before purchase.
Apple charges $25 per gigabyte to upgrade the base M5's memory ($400 for 16 GB). The same dollar buys you 16 GB of RAM on the M5 Max ($1,000 for 80 GB, going 48 → 128 GB). The cheap chip charges twice as much per gigabyte as the expensive one.
Cheapest path to a 4 TB SSD is the plain M5 at $1,699 plus the $1,000 storage upgrade — $2,699 total. The same 4 TB on a 14-inch M5 Max comes out to $4,199. If storage is your bottleneck, not compute, the M5 with a maxed SSD beats a base M5 Max.
Apple doesn't sell a 16-inch with the plain M5 chip. The cheapest 16-inch starts at $2,699 (M5 Pro), the same as a 14-inch M5 with a 4 TB drive. If you're not chip-limited, a 14-inch with more storage is the same money as a bigger screen with less.
Apple charges the same $150 for nano-texture across the entire lineup. As a percentage of the base price, that's 9% on a $1,699 M5 and only 3.4% on a $4,399 16-inch M5 Max. The nano upgrade is proportionally cheaper the more you spend.
Marginal cost of upgrading memory at each tier. Lower is better.
| Chip | Upgrade path | Cost | Extra GB | $ / GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M5 | 16 → 24 GB | $200 | 8 | $25.00 |
| M5 | 16 → 32 GB | $400 | 16 | $25.00 |
| M5 Pro | 24 → 48 GB | $400 | 24 | $16.67 |
| M5 Pro | 24 → 64 GB | $600 | 40 | $15.00 |
| M5 Max | 48 → 64 GB | $200 | 16 | $12.50 |
| M5 Max | 48 → 128 GB | $1,000 | 80 | $12.50 |
Heads-up: on the M5 Max, the 36 → 48 GB jump is bundled with a GPU bin upgrade (32-core → 40-core). You can't buy the RAM tier without buying the extra GPU cores, so the "memory upgrade" is really a $500 chip-bin step that includes 12 GB of RAM.
A starting point if you're picking blind. Verify your specific workload.
| Use case | Recommended config | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Casual / browsing / docs / light dev | 14" M5, 16 GB, 1 TB, Standard display | $1,699 |
| Software dev (containers, IDE, several Chrome windows) | 14" M5 Pro 15c/16c, 24 GB, 1 TB, Standard | $2,199 |
| Photo / video editing / occasional ML | 14" M5 Max 18c/32c, 36 GB, 2 TB, Standard | $3,599 |
| Heavy ML / 3D / large local models | 16" M5 Max 18c/40c, 48 GB, 4 TB, Standard | $4,899 |
| Maxed for the next 5 years | 16" M5 Max 18c/40c, 128 GB, 8 TB, Nano-texture | $7,449 |
If you know one spec you must have, here's the cheapest base config that gets you there.
| Target | Cheapest path | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 4 TB SSD | 14" M5 base + 4 TB upgrade | $2,699 |
| 8 TB SSD | 14" M5 Max 18c/32c + 8 TB upgrade (M5 Max only) | $4,799 |
| 32 GB RAM | 14" M5 base + 32 GB upgrade | $2,099 |
| 48 GB RAM | 14" M5 Pro 15c/16c + 48 GB upgrade | $2,599 |
| 64 GB RAM | 14" M5 Pro 15c/16c + 64 GB upgrade | $2,799 |
| 128 GB RAM | 14" M5 Max 18c/40c + 128 GB upgrade | $5,099 |
| 16-inch screen | 16" M5 Pro base (no 16" with plain M5) | $2,699 |
None of this is purchase advice. Spec your actual workload, then sanity-check the prices yourself at apple.com/shop.