High power limits also result in loud fans and the power adapter is also insufficient. It should not surprise anyone that a 96 Watt power adapter might be struggling when the M5 Max alone can draw 96 Watts at the beginning of the stress test. This also happens while gaming, where you need the High Power mode to get consistent results and the battery level dropped by around 10 % when we played the native Cyberpunk 2077 version. Apple also limits the power input to 97 Watts, even if you use a 140 Watt PSU from or a generic 180W USB-C charger. Considering our measurements on the larger MacBook Pro 16 with the M5 Pro, we suspect the MacBook Pro 14 with the M5 Max will actually consume more than 140 Watts in peak load scenarios, so it has to use the battery as well.
Still, even with these issues, the MBP 14 is still one of the most powerful 14-inch laptops and the two main rivals are the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, which is available with the mobile RTX 5080 or the Asus ProArt PX13 with the AMD Strix Halo Ryzen AI Max+ 395 & Radeon 8060S (also 128 GB RAM), but the screens on both models are just not comparable to the excellent Mini-LED panel of the MacBook Pro 14 and both alternatives do not stand a chance in terms of CPU performance, either.
All in all, this is still a very good multimedia laptop, but the new M5 Pro is just a better fit for the 14-inch chassis. If you want or need the M5 Max, you should be aware that the performance in the 14-inch model will be lower compared to the MacBook Pro 16.
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