New iPad Pro's M5 Chip Outscores Desktop CPUs in Leaked Geekbench Test

Apple's forthcoming M5 chip appears to have popped up on Geekbench. The tested device is labeled "iPad 17,3," almost certainly referring to this year's iPad Pro revision. According to the listing, the chip has nine cores—three for handling high-performance tasks and six focused on efficiency—and runs at up to 4.42 GHz.

The tested model is said to have 12GB of RAM (meaning it is likely the 256 or 512 GB storage variant) and a 14W SoC TDP. By comparison, the current higher-capacity iPad Pros have 10-core CPUs, 16 GB RAM, and 22W.

Credit: Geekbench

The Geekbench single-thread score reached 4,133 points—a jump of 13% over the current model. The multi-threading improvement measured 15% over last year's entry-level iPad Pro. Compared to the more powerful 22W variant, the M5 brings a 10% improvement in single-thread tasks and a modest 5% boost for multi-thread performance. Remarkably, Apple's engineers have achieved this while keeping the chip's power consumption low. This demonstrates the power of the new TSMC N3P manufacturing process, Tom's Hardware emphasizes .

Overall, Apple's chip is shown to be a new leader in single-thread performance for tablets, putting it in the same league as some desktop options, especially given its low TDP.