M1 Ultra Outperforms 28-Core Intel Mac Pro in First Leaked Benchmark

The first benchmark for Apple's M1 Ultra chip popped up on Geekbench following today's event, confirming that the doubled-up M1 Max is indeed able to outperform the highest-end Mac Pro as Apple claims.

f1646763971
Labeled Mac13,2, the Mac Studio with 20-core ‌M1 Ultra‌ that was benchmarked earned a single-core score of 1793 and a multi-core score of 24055.

Comparatively, the highest-end ‌Mac Pro‌ with 28-core Intel Xeon W chip has a single-core score of 1152 and a multi-core score of 19951, so the ‌M1 Ultra‌ is 21 percent faster in this particular benchmark comparison when it comes to multi-core performance. As for single-core performance, the ‌M1 Ultra‌ is 56 percent faster than the 28-core ‌Mac Pro‌.

m1 ultraa benchmark
Apple has claimed that the ‌M1 Ultra‌ is up to 60 percent faster than the 28-core ‌Mac Pro‌ when it comes to CPU performance, so Apple may be referencing single-core differences in the metrics that it shared during today's event. This is just one benchmark, so we could see the ‌M1 Ultra‌ performing better in additional benchmarks following the March 18 release of the ‌Mac Studio‌.

(Thanks, Dion!)

Related Roundup: Mac Studio
Buyer's Guide: Mac Studio (Buy Now)
Related Forum: Mac Studio

Popular Stories

Apple 2025 Thumb 1

10 Products Still Coming From Apple in 2025

Friday April 11, 2025 4:14 pm PDT by
Apple may have updated several iPads and Macs late last year and early this year, but there are still multiple new devices that we're looking forward to seeing in 2025. Most will come in September or October, but there could be a few surprises before then. We've rounded up a list of everything that we're still waiting to see from Apple in 2025. iPhone 17, 17 Air, and 17 Pro - We get...
iPhone 17 Pro 3 4ths Perspective Aluminum Camera Module 1

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Sunday April 13, 2025 7:52 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18 Siri Personal Context

Report Reveals Internal Chaos Behind Apple's Siri Failure

Thursday April 10, 2025 7:15 am PDT by
A new report from The Information today reveals much of the internal turmoil behind Apple Intelligence's revamped version of Siri. Apple apparently weighed up multiple options for the backend of Apple Intelligence. One initial idea was to build both small and large language models, dubbed "Mini Mouse" and "Mighty Mouse," to run locally on iPhones and in the cloud, respectively. Siri's...
M6 MacBook Pro Feature 1

Waiting for the Perfect MacBook Pro? 2026 Might Be the Year

Thursday April 10, 2025 4:19 am PDT by
Apple in October 2024 overhauled its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, adding M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, Thunderbolt 5 ports on higher-end models, display changes, and more. That's quite a lot of updates in one go, but if you think this means a further major refresh for the MacBook Pro is now several years away, think again. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has said he expects only a small...
maxresdefault

The MacRumors Show: New iOS 19, iPhone 17, and Apple Watch Ultra 3 Leaks

Friday April 11, 2025 7:13 am PDT by
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we catch up on the latest iOS 19 and watchOS 12 rumors, upcoming devices, and more. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos Detailed new renders from leaker Jon Prosser claim to provide the best look yet at the complete redesign rumored to arrive in iOS 19, showing more rounded elements, lighting effects, translucency, and...
apple intelligence black

NYT: Apple's AI Struggles Began with 2023 Chip Budget Dispute

Friday April 11, 2025 4:33 am PDT by
Apple's current struggles with Apple Intelligence and Siri began in early 2023 when AI head John Giannandrea sought approval from CEO Tim Cook to purchase more AI chips for development, according to a new report from The New York Times. Cook initially approved doubling the team's chip budget, but CFO Luca Maestri reportedly reduced the increase to less than half that amount, and instead...
iPad Pro iPadOS

iPadOS 19 Will Be 'More Like macOS' in Three Ways

Sunday April 13, 2025 6:43 am PDT by
A common complaint about the iPad Pro is that the iPadOS software platform fails to fully take advantage of the device's powerful hardware. That could soon change. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said that iPadOS 19 will be "more like macOS." Gurman said that iPadOS 19 will be "more like a Mac" in three ways:Improved productivity Improved multitasking Improved app window management...
iOS 18 Siri Personal Context

Apple Plans to Release Delayed Apple Intelligence ‌Siri‌ Features This Fall

Friday April 11, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
Apple plans to release its delayed Apple Intelligence Siri features in the fall, according to a new report by The New York Times. In early March, Apple said that it was going to take longer than expected to roll out the more personalized ‌Siri‌ experience, and that these features would be rolled out "in the coming year." Subsequently, Reuters reported that the ‌Apple Intelligence‌...
iPhone 16e Feature

iPhones, Macs, and Other Apple Devices Exempted From Trump Tariffs

Saturday April 12, 2025 9:44 am PDT by
Apple and other electronics manufacturers have received a break from Trump's reciprocal tariffs, with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency sharing a long list of products excluded from the levies last night. iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watch, and other Apple devices will not be subject to the 125 percent tariffs that have been put in place on imported Chinese goods, nor will Apple...

Top Rated Comments

cmaier Avatar
41 months ago

Yeah because the M1 max just isn’t enough power
If you need a scientific or engineering workstation, or are working with video editing or CGI or the like, then, no, the M1 max wasn’t “enough,” because you’ll take every ounce of power you can get.
Score: 56 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Makosuke Avatar
41 months ago
Given the performance of the M1 Max, this result is right around where you'd expect it to be, so seems completely believable. The only interesting bit is that performance per-core scales linearly. Which is great, but not surprising given the incredible thermal profile of the chip.

With the caveat that, yes, Geekbench is a synthetic benchmark, this thing appears to be significantly outperforming the top-of-line, just-launched 12th-gen i9 desktop parts. Given that the i9-12900K has a TDP of 125W and turbo power rating of 240W, and this thing fits in a compact desktop, I would be feeling more than a little nervous if I were Intel.

The M1 Ultra is even competitive with all but the most extreme big-iron many-core Xeon and Threadripper CPUs, and the entire computer costs less than many of those chips (its also probably smaller than the CPU cooler on some of them)... but it doesn't have 1TB+ of ECC RAM or some of the other features big-iron desktops have.

Which is why I'd be even more nervous, if I were Intel, that Apple hasn't put their own silicon in the Mac Pro yet. That's a pretty strong indication that Apple has something even-higher-end in the pipeline.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
richinaus Avatar
41 months ago

So it's NOT faster than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X ('https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3990x').
It would then be the 2nd best consumer processor in the world.
The entire computer is less expensive than the Threadripper though.

But I don't care, wow... what are people going to do with such a monster of performance... ?
I remember a few people in the cinema industry left Macs because FCPX lacked features when it was released. Are they going to come back ?! Will game developers finally consider the Mac? (the best Mac Studio is 2X as powerful as the PS5)
I am going to chime in here.

Apps I use max out the GPU. The more I add into the 3D model the more RAM it uses plus FPS drop [geometry and textures]. This is gaming engine software.
My 3080ti is already maxed in RAM on my PC, and I am totally over the heat and noise from it.

It simply is insane what apps can use these days in terms of resources and power, and personally I never want my computer to restrict my work in any way.
We get paid a lot of money to be able to deliver good quality design work, quickly. This machine is still actually less than the app subscriptions used on it, believe it or not.

I actually believe the studio is well priced for what it delivers [or at least what I expect it to].
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cloudphrenia Avatar
41 months ago
slap four M1MAXs together and call it the Ultra Instinct
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ChromeCloud Avatar
41 months ago
That would make it roughly 40% faster than the fastest Intel Alder Lake desktop CPU (i9-12900K), which scores about 17000.

Edit: and almost as fast as the 64-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X which scores about 25000.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Eugene Avatar
41 months ago
So better than 12900K multicore performance at maybe 60-65W instead of over 200W. Heh.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)