The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, announced on Wednesday and available on Nov. 6, brings touchscreen control to Apple’s most premium laptop. Pricing starts at $2,899 for the entry-level M5 Pro with the smaller 14-inch display, or $3,399 for the 16-inch model, before any applicable education discounts.
If you go ham on Apple’s preorder configurator and max out the processor, memory and storage, the price balloons to an eye-watering $14,549. That’s wild, especially in today’s economy. Will anyone actually spend that?
Fully loading the M5 MacBook Pro
Let’s see what it means to reach that top-tier configuration of the new touchscreen laptop, starting with the larger, more expensive 16-inch PROLED XDR model at $3,399. Color doesn’t affect price, so take your pick of silver or space black.
The first upgrade you’ll pay for is Nano-texture glass, an antireflective glass finish physically etched at the nanometer scale to diffuse ambient light and eliminate glare, for an additional $150.
Then, stepping up from the M5 Pro’s 20-core GPU to the M5 Max’s 35-core GPU brings the total to $4,949. Bumping to the even more potent 40-core GPU adds another $300, while unlocking horsepower for complex tasks like gaming, video editing and AI-driven operations such as machine learning and coding. (In our testing, CNET found that the Max 40-core is the best fit for pro creatives who work with 8K or raw video, data scientists and intensive users of generative AI imaging and video.)
Next comes memory and storage, which is where things get really expensive. Our starting M5 Max configuration comes standard with 48GB of unified memory and 2TB of storage, but we can pump those numbers considerably. Upgrading to 128GB of memory adds $2,000. Going for 16TB of storage adds $7,000, the most expensive upgrade on the list, roughly doubling the price of the machine.
Pricey high-capacity memory and storage were par for the course long before the RAMpocalypse, but the current AI-fueled spike in RAM and solid-state storage prices has made things worse.
“It’s so expensive because 16TB drives cost a fortune, as does 128GB, and professionals have been paying those workstation prices for years,” Lori Grunin, CNET senior editor for computers and gaming hardware, told me.
Maxing the RAM boosts bandwidth and performance, allowing the Mac to more easily work with the massive files used in high-resolution video, complex 3D models, large datasets and complex mathematical equations. The extra terabytes of storage mean more and larger files can be saved to the device, since neither the MacBook’s memory nor storage can be upgraded after purchase.
All in, our fully loaded MacBook Pro M5 Max with 16-inch PROLED XDR Display comes to $14,549.
Grunin said she’d want more for the money. “For that price, I’d expect the M5 Ultra chip,” she said. “But I don’t think they can put the Ultra in a laptop yet.”
These upgrades aren’t for everyday people
So who buys a laptop that costs more than a used car? Is this just a flex for the super-rich?
“It’s for people who don’t have to pay for it,” said CNET Managing Editor Joshua Goldman.
Configured-to-order, powerful mobile workstations like these are most commonly bought through enterprise procurement by companies, startups and institutions — so the employer is paying, not the individual. Think engineering and architecture firms, Hollywood VFX and post-production houses or AI, machine learning and data science teams. They have big budgets, can put the extra digital horsepower to use and can easily absorb the exorbitant price.
For context, Grunin pointed me to a Dell Precision workstation that I was able to trick out to over $18,000. Five-figure enterprise-scale machines from HP or Lenovo are also not out of the question.
Yes, there will be well-heeled individuals buying at this level, but they’re a relatively small slice of the pie. More likely, the majority of the new touch-enabled MacBook Pros sold will be at still-expensive but easier-to-fathom prices.
