Five Years of Apple Silicon: M1 to M5 Performance Comparison
Key topics
The discussion revolves around a performance comparison of Apple's M1 to M5 chips, with commenters analyzing the data and questioning certain design decisions, while also sharing their personal experiences with the hardware.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Light discussionFirst comment
47m
Peak period
3
2-3h
Avg / period
1.8
Based on 11 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Nov 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 10, 2025 at 6:51 PM EST
47m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
3 comments in 2-3h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 11, 2025 at 1:54 AM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Regardless, they are still great chips.
Transistors have many distinct features. There's the current source and drain, with the gate between them. There's a number of different ways to build these structures.
As a lousy analogy, a light switch has lots of parts: wire terminals, contact points to make a tight connection to a conducting blade that can be moved with a fancy handle, etc.
Maybe you want to print your switch with your home 3D printer. A really fancy one that can print lines that are 3nm in width on a good day.
My guess is they’re doing this to solve some yield issue. M4 is a more difficult process with worse yield, so harder to make an Ultra version today. M3 has better yield so it’s tolerable to make an Ultra.
Probably either a tick/tok pattern forming, or a “previous gen gets an ultra version” pattern forming.
Currently using a MacBook Air M4 and a Mac Mini M4.
>so impressed with the MacBook
The sound on these Apple Silicon laptops is absolutely impressive, making an immediate & lasting impression upon first-timers.
----
The basic configuration M4 (mini) is a very capable system, with an incredible price... it's just slightly slower than an M2Pro, for half the price.
I have an M3 (air) which is ignificantly less-capable than either (the mistake Apple made was default 8GB configuration).
The above basic-configuration models are listed from fastest to slowest, oldest to newest, most-expensive to least...