Apple recently announced its new Mac Studio with M4 Max and M3 Ultra, with the latter now being touted as offering "the most powerful CPU and GPU in a Mac." Thanks to a new benchmark leak, this looks to be the case — but the results aren't exactly straightforward.
As spotted by @jimmyjames_tech on X (via MacRumors), the M3 Ultra has shown up on Geekbench with a multi-core score of 27,749. This makes it Apple's fastest-performing chip in a Mac, outperforming the M4 Max in multi-core performance, which achieved an average of 24,445 on Geekbench.
The M3 Ultra packs a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores (the most cores in a Mac), along with an 80-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine and 96GB of unified memory.
Compared to the M4 Max chip, with its 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU and up to 128GB, it's clear the M3 Ultra has the advantage.
However, there's one area the M3 Ultra appears to fall behind in this alleged benchmark: single-core performance.
Benchmark | M3 Ultra | M4 Max |
Geekbench 6.4 single-core | 3,221 | 3,884 |
Geekbench 6.4 multi-score | 27,749 | 24,445 |
According to the benchmark on Geekbench, the M3 Ultra scores 3,221 in single-core performance, while the M4 Max score 3,884. Single-score performance measures the processing power of a CPU using just one core, rating how well it can handle tasks that rely on one core.
Since the result is based on one sample, and we have yet to see the M3 Ultra in action, it's worth taking those numbers with a pinch of salt. Still, considering the price difference, the M3 Ultra doesn't appear to blow away the M4 Max (for now).
M4 Max will save you $2,000
Apple's latest M3 Ultra has been a long time coming, but it now arrives on the Mac Studio with prices starting at $3,999. It may seem strange to see an M3 Ultra now that we're in the era of M4, but during our first look at the processors, Apple claimed the M3 Ultra delivers nearly 2x faster performance than the M4 Max and up to 2.5x the performance of the M1 Ultra.
This doesn't appear to be the case in the recent benchmark. The M4 Max starts from $1,999, and the performance gap isn't nearly as big as the Cupertino tech giant claims it to be.
The M4 Max starts from $1,999, and the performance gap isn't nearly as big as the Cupertino tech giant claims it to be.
All this being said, the M3 Ultra is set to be for professionals and power users, leveraging the insane 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 96GB of unified memory for AI tasks and graphics.
For example, by leveraging LLM Studio (creating large language models), it could help the user code a Python script of an object for a game, copy and paste it into Cinema 4D, and render the object in seconds. Not hours, seconds.
It could also offer up Cyberpunk 2077 (coming to Mac later this year) in all of its glory.
While it's aimed at power users, will it offer enough performance gains to justify its $3,999 starting price, especially over the $1,999 M4 Max and its impressive power? This remains to be seen, as the M3 Ultra still needs more testing (and real-world testing) to reveal its true power.
If you're after something a tad more portable (and affordable), the MacBook Air M4 is already looking to be the laptop of the year.
More from Tom's Guide
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