When the primary M3 benchmarks appeared within the Geekbench 6 database yesterday, we realized that the processor has a 16% greater clock pace. The Efficiency cores (and thus single-core efficiency) is greater nearly solely on account of these greater clocks quite than architectural modifications, however the Effectivity cores present a little bit of enchancment past only a clock pace bump.
So what when you get greater clocks and extra cores? The brand new M3 Max leads to the Geekbench 6 database present what which means for Apple, and it’s the image of an especially spectacular chip for high-end laptops and compact desktops.
Right here’s how the scores break down, and evaluate to the M2 Max:
M2 Max (12 cores, 4E and 8P)
- Clock pace: 3.66GHz
- Single-core: 2736
- Multi-core: 14497
M3 Max (16 cores, 4E and 12P)
- Clock pace: 4.05GHz
- Single-core: 2971
- Multi-core: 20785
The clock pace has jumped about 11 p.c, from 3.66GHz to 4.05GHz. Single-core efficiency is about 9 p.c greater (lower than the utmost clock pace enhance, maybe on account of thermal limitations or simply testing variance). The multi-core rating takes a big 43 p.c bounce, which is sensible. Apple boosted the M3 Max from 12 cores to 14/16 by including 4 extra efficiency cores in comparison with the M3 Professional. Quicker cores, plus extra of them, equals large efficiency boosts.
This places the CPU efficiency of the M3 Max roughly on par with the M2 Extremely within the Mac Professional and Mac Studio (although the GPU efficiency of the latter would doubtless be a lot better).
As we stated in our protection of the first M3 Geekbench scores, the chip is extra than simply the CPU and one benchmark can by no means inform you the entire story. Apple says the largest enchancment is within the GPU, and there have been enhancements to the video decoders/encoders and Neural Engine as nicely.
The way it compares to Intel and AMD
Evaluating Apple’s chips to Intel and AMD’s is a considerably educational train. It’s good to know you’re not falling behind, however clients purchase Macs as a result of they’re Macs, not as a result of they win benchmark races. The essential factor is Apple’s construct high quality, software program, and providers, which work hand-in-hand with different Apple merchandise.
Nonetheless, the M3 Max avails itself very nicely relative to the very best high-performance laptop computer chips from Intel and AMD.
The quickest current rating for a high-end laptop computer with an Intel Core i9-13980HX, a 24-core CPU, is 2981 single-core and 18958 multi-core. That’s about the identical single-core efficiency and about 9 p.c slower multi-core efficiency. Observe that the majority laptops with Intel chips of this selection decelerate when used on battery, and solely keep this efficiency when plugged in. The identical is often not true of Mac with Apple Silicon.
On the AMD aspect, the 16-core Ryzen 9 7945HX3D scores about 2890 single-core and 16726 multi-core. That’s a bit decrease than Intel’s finest, however the chip’s massive cache makes it sooner in quite a lot of different duties past the Geekbench benchmark and is usually thought to be extra power-efficienct.
So it seems like Apple’s newest high-end laptop computer chip, which can even characteristic in future compact desktops just like the Mac Studio, is at the least as quick as Intel and AMD’s finest laptop computer chips, as measured by Geekbench 6. Intel and AMD have higher-performing desktop processors, however in addition they use much more energy.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, meant to reach in Home windows PCs in the summertime of 2024, boasted of beating Apple’s M2 with a single-core rating of 2940 and multi-core rating of 15,130 in benchmarks provided by Qualcomm. That’s in a configuration with a complete energy over 80 watts which gained’t seem in merchandise till the summer time of 2024. It’s secure to say the quickest laptops with the Snapdragon X Elite gained’t strategy the multi-core efficiency of the M3 Max.
