Blender Begins Testing Metal GPU Rendering on M1 Macs

The free and open source 3D creation tool Blender this week began testing Metal GPU rendering for its Cycles renderer on M1 Macs running macOS Monterey. Blender said Metal support for Macs with Intel and AMD GPUs is under development.

blender metal rendering

Image Credit: @Jonatan on Twitter

Metal GPU rendering for Cycles can be tested in the Blender 3.1 Alpha and was made possible by a contribution from Apple, which recently joined the Blender Development Fund to support continued development of the 3D creation tool.

Blender said Metal GPU rendering in the Alpha build "is in an early state" and no timeframe was provided for the final release of Blender 3.1.

Apple's support for Blender has been praised by users of the 3D creation tool, as it marks the return of macOS as a completely supported Blender platform. Blender had not supported GPU rendering on Macs since Apple implemented its Metal framework.

Tags: Blender, Metal

Popular Stories

Apple Logo Spotlight

Apple Expected to Unveil Five All-New Products This Year

Wednesday January 21, 2026 10:54 am PST by
In addition to updating many of its existing products, Apple is expected to unveil five all-new products this year, including a smart home hub, a Face ID doorbell, a MacBook with an A18 Pro chip, a foldable iPhone, and augmented reality glasses. Below, we have recapped rumored features for each product. Smart Home Hub Apple home hub (concept) Apple's long-rumored smart home hub should...
airpods pro 3 purple

New, Higher End AirPods Pro Coming This Year

Tuesday January 20, 2026 9:05 am PST by
Apple is planning to debut a high-end secondary version of AirPods Pro 3 this year, sitting in the lineup alongside the current model, reports suggest. Back in September 2025, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is planning to introduce a successor to the AirPods Pro 3 in 2026. This would be somewhat unusual since Apple normally waits around three years to make major...
airtag prime day 2

Apple Developing AirTag-Sized AI Pin With Dual Cameras

Wednesday January 21, 2026 12:31 pm PST by
Apple is working on a small, wearable AI pin equipped with multiple cameras, a speaker, and microphones, reports The Information. If it actually launches, the AI pin will likely run the new Siri chatbot that Apple plans to unveil in iOS 27. The pin is said to be similar in size to an AirTag, with a thin, flat, circular disc shape. It has an aluminum and glass shell, and two cameras at the...
smaller dynamic island iphone 18 pro Filip Vabrous%CC%8Cek

iPhone 18 Pro Leak: Smaller Dynamic Island, No Top-Left Camera Cutout

Tuesday January 20, 2026 2:34 am PST by
Over the last few months, rumors around the iPhone 18 Pro's front-panel design have been conflicted, with some supply-chain leaks pointing to under-display Face ID, reports suggesting a top-left hole-punch camera, and debate over whether the familiar Dynamic Island will shrink, shift, or disappear entirely. Today, Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital shared new details that appear to clarify the ...
bug security vulnerability issue fix larry

Apple's Secret Product Plans Stolen in Luxshare Cyberattack

Wednesday January 21, 2026 9:17 am PST by
The Apple supplier subject to a major cyberattack last month was China's Luxshare, it has now emerged. More than 1TB of confidential Apple information was reportedly stolen. It was reported in December that one of Apple's assemblers suffered a significant cyberattack that may have compromised sensitive production-line information and manufacturing data linked to Apple. The specific company...

Top Rated Comments

Populus Avatar
54 months ago
I’m so happy to read this, not only because it’s another big software on it’s way to run natively on the Apple Silicon macs, but also because Blender is becoming a big actor on the animation scene (I could say one of the most important softwares in 3D)... and it is open source!!! And I love open source software.

PS: This means support for Intel macs as well, because we’re talking about the graphics API, which is shared among all macs
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
terminator-jq Avatar
54 months ago
This is actually an area where Apples unified memory can show major advantages over a traditional GPU. GPU rendering often requires a high amount of VRAM and nowadays 4K textures and digital scans are becoming more of a norm especially when rendering for photorealistic projects like architecture.

There’s also the benefit of thermals. On a regular PC and especially in the laptop space, powerful GPUs generate a lot of heat which then causes major throttling. The M1 chips stay cool which allows for peak performance for much longer.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
54 months ago
Very nice! Glad to see this
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Grohowiak Avatar
54 months ago
Once stable this will be a game changer.
Some of the time improvements are insane already.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MauiPa Avatar
54 months ago

$1200 Lenovo Legion Slim 7 with 3060 at 70W is 2.6x ('https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/3d-rendering-on-apple-silicon-cpu-gpu.2269416/post-30676733') faster on BMW render than $3K+ MBP M1 Max. Desktop RTX is even faster at <10s.

16.39s - 3060 70W mobile (OptiX Blender 3.0)
20.57s - reference 6900xt (HIP Blender 3.0)
29s - 2070 Super (OptiX)
31s - 3060 70W mobile (OptiX Blender 2.93)
42.79s - M1 Max 32GPU (Metal supported Blender 3.1 alpha)
48s - M1 Max 24GPU (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
51s - 2070 Super (CUDA)
1:18.34m - M1 Pro 16GPU (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
2.04m - Mac Mini M1 (Metal Blender 3.1 alpha + patch)
2:48.03m - MBA M1 (Metal supported Blender 3.1 alpha)
3:55.81m - AMD 5800H base clock no-boost and no-PBO overclock (CPU Blender 3.0)
5:51.06m - MBA M1 (CPU Blender 3.0)
all fine and good of course, but isn't this why they are developing native software? So you were not expecting these results?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Icelus Avatar
54 months ago

Blender 3.0 CPU :
84secs

Blender 3.1 Metal GPU only :
50secs

Blender 3.1 Metal GPU+CPU :
36secs

https://devtalk.blender.org/t/cycles-apple-metal-device-feedback/21868/14
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)