March 3, 2026
Can it run Liquid Glass?
Apple Introduces MacBook Pro with All‑New M5 Pro and M5 Max
Apple’s new MacBook Pro is a rocket—fans cheer storage, mock “Super cores,” and ask if it runs Liquid Glass
TLDR: Apple launched faster MacBook Pros with M5 Pro/Max chips, bigger default storage, and promises of private, on‑device AI. Commenters cheered the storage bump and 128GB memory, but sparred over “Super cores” marketing, asked about local AI, and braced for premium pricing—memes included.
Apple dropped new 14- and 16‑inch MacBook Pros with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, promising faster everything and “on‑device AI,” and the internet instantly turned into a watch party. The big applause? Storage and memory. Commenters loved the jump to 1TB standard on M5 Pro (2TB on M5 Max) and the return of big‑boy 128GB memory options. “Finally,” sighed the upgrade crowd.
But here comes the drama: Apple says these chips have 18 cores (think: tiny brains) with 6 “Super cores” and **12 “Performance cores.” Spec sleuths are unconvinced. One top comment calls the “Super” label a rebrand of old parts, and the thread instantly split into Team Breakthrough vs Team Marketing Gloss. Meanwhile, Apple’s line about “Neural Accelerators in each GPU core” and up to 4x faster AI had privacy hawks buzzing: can it run large language models—chatbot brains like ChatGPT—offline on your laptop? Some say this is Apple’s privacy moment; others think it’s just setting the stage for Apple’s own AI features.
And then the memes: one user cracked, “But is it powerful enough to run Liquid glass?”—a perfect throwback to the old “Can it run Crysis?” benchmark joke. Underneath the hype, a familiar ghost lurks: price anxiety. With Wi‑Fi 7, a brighter pro display, and Thunderbolt 5, the new MacBooks look stacked—but commenters are bracing their wallets while debating whether this is real innovation or just dazzling polish.
Key Points
- •Apple announced new 14‑ and 16‑inch MacBook Pro models featuring M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
- •Apple claims up to 4x AI performance over the previous generation and up to 8x over M1 models, with up to 2x faster SSD speeds.
- •New chips use Apple’s Fusion Architecture, combining two dies into a single SoC, with up to an 18‑core CPU (6 super cores and 12 performance cores) and a next‑gen GPU with a Neural Accelerator per core.
- •Starting storage increases to 1TB for M5 Pro models and 2TB for M5 Max models; battery life is up to 24 hours.
- •The laptops include the N1 networking chip enabling Wi‑Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, plus Thunderbolt 5, Liquid Retina XDR with nano‑texture option, a 12MP Center Stage camera, studio mics, and a six‑speaker system.