M5, Apple's next super giga mega powerful chip for the iPad Pro: not overkill, just irrelevant

Back in 2023, when rumors had it that Oppo and OnePlus were working on a smartphone with 24 GB of RAM, I made some allusions to Motörhead's 1979 masterpiece album "Overkill".

2025 has just begun and some phones already ship with 16 GB of RAM. Give it a couple more years, and 24 gigs will soon be the norm. Especially with the way companies are obsessed with jamming more and more AI in our handsets (the magic comes at a cost and AI tasks can be exceptionally RAM-hungry).

Now, I'm tempted to once again use the "Overkill" insinuation. This time I'll be talking about Apple and tablets (like the mighty iPad Pro) instead of the iPhone. See, Apple has reportedly begun production of the M5 chip.



If you're following Apple, or tablets as a category closely, you know how potent and powerful the M4 chip was (is). That's why it's only logical to assume that the M5 chip will be way, way more powerful, fast, and efficient than the M4 chip.

Hence, the "overkill" reference (no, seriously, go check out Motörhead's album, if you're into rock).

Then again, "overkill" is generally defined as an excessive amount of something beyond what is necessary or appropriate. It was valid for the smartphone RAM story I mentioned above: 24 GB of RAM was definitely an overkill for 2023.

Apple's M5 chip, however, is shaping out to be an overkill to the point of irrelevance. That's because, as the aforementioned report reads, the M5 won't be "the leap everyone expected" – as in, won't be the as mighty as some hoped it to be.

What it's going to be like (probably)

So, Apple has reportedly begun mass production of its next-generation M5 chip: naturally, it is expected to debut in the upcoming iPad Pro. While the M5 will bring improvements over its predecessor, it won't represent a major leap. The chip will continue to be manufactured using TSMC's 3 nm process, similar to the M3 and M4, rather than transitioning to the more advanced 2 nm technology.

In mobile devices, the nm (nanometer) size in chips refers to how small the tiny parts inside the processor are. A lower nm number generally means the chip is more advanced, using less power while running faster.

Although Apple is keeping the M5 chip at 3 nm instead of moving to 2 nm, the actual number doesn't always tell the full story. In the past, nanometer measurements referred to the size of tiny parts inside the chip, but today, they are more of a way to label different generations of technology.