- 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 has also been shown to get the better of some powerful desktop CPUs, but we have to tread carefully here
If you were wondering just how fast Apple’s new M5 chip can be, the answer is actually pretty smart on the grapevine.
As Tom’s Hardware reports, the M5, which powers the new MacBook Pro 14-inch (and updated iPad Pro as well as the Vision Pro), is actually faster than Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme for single-core performance, based on a leaked Geekbench score that Tech Info highlighted on the X.
iPad Pro M5 (10c version) vs Macbook Pro M5iPad Pro M5 is clocked at 4.43GHzMacBook Pro M5 is clocked at 4.61GHz P Core Clock speedsiPad Pro: 4.1K ST & 16.3K MTmacBook Pro: 4.2K ST & 17.8K has a MTWai look for Graph. pic.twitter.com/UQT2HpPhmu17 October 2025
Add some spice, but as you can see in the post above, the comparison on X between MacBook Pro and iPad Pro with M5 chip (10-core) is where the notebook wins – and shows the benefits of better cooling and thermals with a notebook chassis. The M5 in the MacBook Pro is shown running at 4.61GHz compared to 4.43GHz in the iPad Pro.
What’s more interesting, though, is taking the results for the MacBook Pro 14-inch M5 – 4,263 points in the single-core CPU test and 17,862 in the multi-core – and comparing them to other chips.
That’s exactly what Tom’s Hardware did, noting that the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme achieved a single-core score of 4,080 in Qualcomm’s official benchmarks, meaning the M5 beats it by almost 5% here.
Tom’s Hardware also compared the M5’s scores to some mighty desktop PC processors, based on averages for those chips from the Geekbench database (calculated by our sister site), with the following results.
|
CPU |
Single-core result |
Multi-core 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 eye-opening to say the least The Apple M5 leaves these desktop behemoths in the dust.
However, multi-core performance is very different, and before we get too carried away, let’s dig a little in the weeds with these comparisons.
Analysis: get better from Elite Extreme – sort of
First, we must be careful with any leaked benchmark, and also remember that this is only one benchmark, and only one single result for the M5 – so not a representative average as the scores of the desktop CPUs Toms 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 (against the average), it’s 4,306 – so just a touch faster than the M5. Still, it’s mighty impressive that the M5 almost matches this flagship Intel processor; there is no doubt about that.
In terms of multi-core, the M5 lags behind the major desktop players by 20% to 30%, but of course these processors have a much larger number of cores than 10-cores. The Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme also beats the M5 in multi-core, hitting 23,491, so it’s 30% faster here (but don’t forget the chip has 18 cores).
Still, all in all, there’s no denying that based on this glimpse of M5 performance – and it’s just a fleeting glimpse, and only a leak – it looks like Apple has once again hit a winner with its own SoCs.
And of course there will still be more powerful models of the M5 with more cores and better multi-core performance – there will be some excitement around the unveiling of the M5 Pro and Max.
