Apple is making impressive and eye-catching claims about the performance of its new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, and on paper, the highest-end M1 Max chip actually has more raw GPU performance than Sony's PlayStation 5.
The M1 Max chip can be configured to include up to a 32-core GPU, a gigantic leap compared to the 8-core GPU option offered in the M1 chip. Apple says that the M1 Max chip uses 70% less power at peak graphic performance than a PC laptop with a discrete graphics card. Apple also claims that the M1 Max chip offers "similar performance" to a "pro laptop with high-performing discrete GPU" while using 100 watts less power.
To make the claims, Apple tested the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip, featuring a 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 64GB of RAM compared to the MSI GE76 Raider and the Razer Blade 15 Advanced. For a further breakdown of the GPU performance, Notebookcheck estimated how many teraflops the new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips can handle based on Apple's information about the new chips. These are their findings:
M1 8-core = 2.6 TF
M1 Pro 14-core = 4.5 TF
M1 Pro 16-core = 5.2 TF
M1 Max 24-core = 7.8 TF
M1 Max 32-core = 10.4 TF
On paper, the M1 Max chip maxed out with 32-cores of GPU can tackle more teraflops of graphics than Sony's PlayStation 5, which maxes out at 10.28 teraflops. Notebookcheck's numbers are based on estimations and not real-world testing, but until the new laptops begin arriving in the hands of customers next week, they are all we have to rely on. As noted by YouTuber ZoneOfTech on Twitter, the M1 Max chip can also read up to 7.4GB per second, higher than the PlayStation 5's 5.5GB read speed.
The new MacBook Pros cost more than the PlayStation 5, but nonetheless, Apple's ability to make claims about a portable laptop that rivals a high-end gaming console is impressive. As stated above, these claims are just on-paper, and proper performance and speed tests will surely come shortly after the new MacBook Pros start arriving for customers next week.
Such an illiterate logic ?. Apple’s marketing and their fanbase never fails to impress me, especially on MacRumors…
10.4TF doesn’t mean that it can actually use 10.4TF if it’s power limited to +-60W and probably even bandwidth starved, (lack superior L1 and L2 caches, don’t use unified L3 chance, lacks a geometry engine, doesn’t support techniques such as VRS and storage APIs…)
The AMD Radeon V is actually 14.9 TF and the AMD VEGA 64 is 13.4 TF, and both are slower than the PS5 and Series X, significantly slower in fact!
Don’t fall for the fake marketing people. By no mean these MacBooks are slow or anything, but if you actually believe that it’s faster than a PS5 you have to seek help…
For consoles to consistently hit their maximum TFlops performance they actually uses these kind of heatsink.
The problem is that there are no real AAA games on the Mac. We want to see games like COD modern warfare, red dead redemption 2 and cyber punk etc run on these M1 Pro chips.
Monday October 25, 2021 12:00 pm PDT by Juli Clover
We've heard Apple's overview of the the M1 Pro and M1 Max Apple silicon chips and we've seen benchmarks of the CPU and GPUs, but AnandTech has done a technical deep dive into the capabilities of the new chips that's well worth reading for those who are interested in learning more.
According to AnandTech, the M1 Pro is a new implementation of the M1 chip, but designed "from the ground up" to...
Wednesday October 20, 2021 8:14 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Multiple benchmarks have already given us a general estimate of the CPU performance of the M1 Max chip, but we've had little insight into GPU performance. The M1 Max is equipped with up to 32 graphics cores, marking a vast improvement over the 8-core GPU of the M1, which was Apple's first chip.
The first Metal benchmark for the M1 Max surfaced this afternoon, with the chip earning a score of ...
Monday October 18, 2021 10:17 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple at its "Unleashed" event today announced the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, two custom-built successor chips to the original M1 Apple silicon chip. The new MacBook Pros are powered by the new chips, which deliver up to 70% faster CPU performance than the M1. The M1 Pro features up to 10 CPU cores, with eight high-performance and two energy-efficient cores. In terms of graphics, the M1...
Monday October 18, 2021 1:18 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Just after Apple's event introducing the new MacBook Pro models with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, the first benchmark for the high-end M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU appears to have surfaced.
The chip features a single-core score of 1749 and a multi-core score of 11542, which offers double the multi-core performance of the M1 chip that's in the 13-inch MacBook Pro machine.
Based ...
Wednesday November 3, 2021 12:38 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Now that the new MacBook Pro models have been available for a week, we've been able to do more in-depth testing. In our latest YouTube video, we pit the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip against the high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip to see just what you're getting with the upgrade to the M1 Max.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. ...
Friday November 5, 2021 12:30 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Intel last week unveiled its first 12th-generation "Alder Lake" processors with the launch of six new processors aimed at desktop computers, including the high-end Core i9-12900K, a 16-core chip with eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores.
While the first 12th-generation processors are desktop class, they still make for an interesting comparison with Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max...
Saturday October 23, 2021 11:22 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first seemingly legitimate Geekbench 5 result for the base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with an 8-core M1 Pro chip has surfaced, and it reveals that the 8-core model is, as expected, ~20% slower than 10-core models in terms of multi-core performance. The 10-core model has 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores, while the 8-core model has 6 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores.
The...
Tuesday October 19, 2021 2:25 am PDT by Sami Fathi
The new 16-inch MacBook Pro can be configured with either the M1 Pro or M1 Max chips. The M1 Max chip is the highest-end Apple silicon chip available, and alongside the added performance, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip comes with another difference — it's heavier, slightly.
As we've already highlighted, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is heavier and thicker than the previous model. ...
Top Rated Comments
(I mean graphically intensive ones)
Apple’s marketing and their fanbase never fails to impress me, especially on MacRumors…
10.4TF doesn’t mean that it can actually use 10.4TF if it’s power limited to +-60W and probably even bandwidth starved, (lack superior L1 and L2 caches, don’t use unified L3 chance, lacks a geometry engine, doesn’t support techniques such as VRS and storage APIs…)
The AMD Radeon V is actually 14.9 TF and the AMD VEGA 64 is 13.4 TF, and both are slower than the PS5 and Series X, significantly slower in fact!
Don’t fall for the fake marketing people. By no mean these MacBooks are slow or anything, but if you actually believe that it’s faster than a PS5 you have to seek help…
For consoles to consistently hit their maximum TFlops performance they actually uses these kind of heatsink.
Games on the new mac are like Final Cut or Logic pro on the M1 iPad... we have sooooo much power... for nothing.