Apple unveiled its latest slate of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops on Tuesday morning. For the MacBook Pro, the new hardware arrives alongside new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
The specifications for these new chips are impressive, featuring an 18-core CPU. Apple states the new chips deliver over four times the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation.
However, consumers may be surprised by the pricing of the new MacBook Pro devices. For the base MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro chip, prices start at $2,199 for the 14-inch model and $2,699 for the 16-inch model. The MacBook Pro models equipped with the M5 Max chips start at $3,599 for the 14-inch version and $3,899 for the 16-inch version.
For comparison, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip started at $1,999 when it was released.
This pricing shift occurs as the market experiences a significant shortage of RAM, driven by demands for more computers and data centers to power AI. This shortage is causing memory prices to surge across the industry.
Analysts are already predicting that smartphone shipments will plummet this year as a direct result of the memory shortage. Naturally, other hardware like laptops is also impacted. Apple’s new pricing could serve as a bellwether for how much the entire sector will be affected by these rising costs.