Apple MacBook Pro 14″ (M5 Pro or M5 Max) vs Apple MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2008)
Better figure, where one is clearly better
| AppleMacBook Pro 14″ (M5 Pro or M5 Max) | AppleMacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2008) | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Released | March 2026 | February 2008 |
| Display | ||
| Screen size | 14.2″ | 17″ |
| Resolution | 3024 × 1964 (better) | 1680 × 1050 |
| Panel | Mini-LED | – |
| Refresh rate | 120 Hz | – |
| Brightness | 1,000 nits | – |
| HDR peak brightness | 1,600 nits | – |
| Touchscreen | No | No |
| Display type | Liquid Retina XDR display | 17-inch TFT widescreen display at 1680 × 1050, matte or glossy. Optional 1920 × 1200 LED-backlit display; exact panel technology and refresh rate unpublished. |
| Pixel density | 254 ppi | – |
| Colour range | Wide colour (P3); 1 billion colours | – |
| Screen finish | Standard, or nano-texture as an option | – |
| Display features | 1,000,000:1 contrast; 1,000 nits sustained full-screen XDR brightness; ProMotion up to 120 Hz, with fixed 47.95, 48, 50, 59.94 and 60 Hz rates; True Tone | – |
| Performance | ||
| Processor | Apple M5 Pro or Apple M5 Max | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz (MacBook Pro Early 2008) or Intel Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz (MacBook Pro Early 2008) |
| CPU cores | 15 or 18 | 2 |
| Graphics | 16-core GPU, 20-core GPU, 32-core GPU or 40-core GPU | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (512 MB GDDR3) |
| Memory | 24 GB, 36 GB, 48 GB, 64 GB or 128 GB (better) | 2 GB or 4 GB |
| Storage | 1 TB to 8 TB (better) | 200 GB to 300 GB |
| CPU | 15-core CPU with 5 super cores and 10 performance cores (entry M5 Pro), or 18-core CPU with 6 super cores and 12 performance cores | Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.5 GHz or optional 2.6 GHz, with 6 MB shared L2 cache and an 800 MHz frontside bus. |
| GPU | 16-core or 20-core (M5 Pro), 32-core or 40-core (M5 Max) GPU with Neural Accelerators and hardware-accelerated ray tracing; Media Engine with H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW acceleration and AV1 decode, with two video encode and two ProRes engines on M5 Max | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512 MB GDDR3 video memory |
| AI engine | 16-core Neural Engine | – |
| Memory type | Unified memory | 2 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, configurable to 4 GB, in two SO-DIMM slots. |
| Memory bandwidth | 307 GB/s (M5 Pro), 460 GB/s (M5 Max with 32-core GPU) or 614 GB/s (M5 Max with 40-core GPU) | – |
| Storage type | SSD, configurable up to 4 TB (M5 Pro) or 8 TB (M5 Max); Apple quotes up to 14.5 GB/s read and write (tested with a 16-inch M5 Max with 8 TB) | 250 GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive; optional 200 GB 7200-rpm or 300 GB 4200-rpm drive with either processor. 8× SuperDrive with double-layer DVD writing. |
| Battery and size | ||
| Battery life (maker's claim) | Up to 22 hours | – |
| Battery capacity | 72.4 Wh | – |
| Weight | 1.6 kg | – |
| Thickness | 15.5 mm | – |
| Width × depth | 312.6 × 221.2 mm | – |
| Battery life detail | M5 Pro up to 22 hours video streaming and 14 hours wireless web; M5 Max up to 20 hours video streaming and 13 hours wireless web; lithium-polymer battery | Removable lithium-polymer battery. Capacity, life, metric weight and dimensions are omitted because the surviving maker launch notice and exact manual do not publish them. Macworld describes the model as 6.6 lb; this original unit is retained without conversion. |
| Charger | Sold separately in the UK (70 W or 96 W Apple USB-C adapters offered); needs at least 70 W over USB PD | 85 W MagSafe Power Adapter |
| Fast charging | With a 96 W or higher USB PD power source | – |
| Materials | 100% recycled aluminium enclosure; 45% recycled content overall | Aluminium enclosure |
| Colours | Space Black, Silver | Silver |
| Connections | ||
| Ports | 3 × Thunderbolt 5, HDMI, SD card slot, MagSafe 3, headphone jack | 3 × USB-A, Ethernet, headphone jack, MagSafe |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 7 | AirPort Extreme 802.11n; compatible with 802.11a/b/g |
| Bluetooth | 6 | 2.1 + EDR |
| Webcam | 12MP Center Stage | Built-in iSight camera |
| Operating system | macOS | macOS |
| Port detail | 3 × Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) with charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt 5 and USB 4 (up to 120 Gb/s); HDMI (up to 8K) with multichannel audio output; SDXC card slot; MagSafe 3; 3.5 mm headphone jack with high-impedance headphone support | Three USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, MagSafe, dual-link DVI, ExpressCard/34, separate combined optical digital audio input/line input and optical digital audio output/headphone output. |
| External displays | M5 Pro up to three at 6K 60 Hz or 4K 144 Hz, or one at 8K 60 Hz, 5K 120 Hz or 4K 240 Hz plus one at 5K 120 Hz or 4K 200 Hz; M5 Max up to four at 6K 60 Hz or 4K 144 Hz, or two at 8K 60 Hz, 5K 120 Hz or 4K 240 Hz; all alongside the built-in display | Supports an external display up to 2560 × 1600 pixels alongside the built-in display. DVI-to-VGA adapter included; other display adapters optional. |
| Keyboard | Backlit Magic Keyboard, 78 (ANSI) or 79 (ISO) keys including 12 full-height function keys | Backlit keyboard with ambient light sensors and revised function keys; the previous embedded numeric keypad is removed. |
| Trackpad | Force Touch trackpad | Multi-Touch trackpad supports two-finger scrolling, pinch, rotate and three-finger swipe. |
| Speakers | High-fidelity six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers; wide stereo; Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos | Built-in stereo speakers |
| Microphones | Studio-quality three-mic array with directional beamforming; Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum modes | Omnidirectional microphone beneath the left speaker grille. |
| Biometrics | Touch ID | – |
| In the box | 14-inch MacBook Pro, USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable (2 m), polishing cloth (nano-texture display only); power adapter sold separately | MacBook Pro, removable battery, 85 W MagSafe Power Adapter with AC wall plug and power cord, DVI-to-VGA adapter, install/restore DVDs and documentation. Mac OS X Leopard and iLife ’08; Apple Remote sold separately. The retired SP4 spec sheet is unavailable, so maker launch notice and exact early-2008 user guide supply core specifications. |
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