Apple announced the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros on Monday, marking the debut of the company's new M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs. While we've already seen a bit of the M1 Max's computing power, one Redditor has found a new benchmark (opens in new tab) of the M1 Max stretching its feet in a graphics benchmark.
The M1 Max wields a 32-core GPU with 16 execution units each. Each execution unit houses eight ALUs, bringing the total number of ALUs in the M1 Max to 4,096. According to Apple, the GPU delivers performance up to 10.4 TFLOPs. In theory, the M1 Max's GPU should perform somewhere in the area of the GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile, which offers 10.91 TFLOPs.
During its presentation, Apple claimed that the M1 Max's GPU (60W) rivals Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile (160W). Apple's SoC reportedly offers equivalent performance at 100W less power. The company also provided a comparison to the 100W variant of the GeForce RTX 3080 where the M1 Max showed a 40% lower power consumption. For the time being, we should take Apple's numbers with a bit of salt since the company didn't provide any context, only having used "select industry-standard benchmarks."
GFXBench originated as a smartphone benchmark, therefore, the tests aren't suitable for modern graphics cards. Unlike 3DMark, we recommend you approach GFXBench results with lots of caution. Furthermore, the M1 Max (opens in new tab) submission was on Mac OS X with the Metal API, whereas the GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile (opens in new tab) and Radeon RX 6800M (opens in new tab) submissions were carried out on Windows and the OpenGL API. We've used the offscreen results for comparison.
Apple M1 Max Benchmarks
| Processor | Aztec Ruins Normal Tier | Aztec Ruins High Tier | Car Chase | 1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 Offscreen | Manhattan 3.1 | Manhattan | T-Rex | ALU 2 | Driver Overhead 2 | Texturing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple M1 Max | 503.3 FPS | 194.3 FPS | 298.5 FPS | 398.9 FPS | 816.9 FPS | 1,187.8 FPS | 1,391.2 FPS | 1,073.1 FPS | 398.1 FPS | 235,842 MTexel/s |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile | 455.1 FPS | 217.6 FPS | 437.8 FPS | 394.8 FPS | 580.7 FPS | 632.9 FPS | 1,918.0 FPS | 2,887.9 FPS | 172.5 FPS | 221,647 MTexel/s |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800M | 390.9 FPS | 242.0 FPS | 298.7 FPS | 363.5 FPS | 389.5 FPS | 404.1 FPS | 1,298.2 FPS | 2,650.4 FPS | 115.8 FPS | 234,201 MTexel/s |
| Apple M1 | 203.6 FPS | 77.5 FPS | 176.5 FPS | 130.9 FPS | 272.4 FPS | 403.9 FPS | 649.5 FPS | 298.6 FPS | 245.1 FPS | 71,098 MTexel/s |
Apple touted that the M1 Max's graphics performance was up to four times faster than the original M1. The results showed that Apple's claims were mostly on point, although not in every workload.
The M1 Max looked pretty good beside the GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile or Radeon RX 6800M. Apple's chip outperformed Nvidia and AMD's GPUs in some workloads and stayed within a small margin in others. The M1 Max's power efficiency was the most impressive feat, considering that the GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile and Radeon RX 6800M conform to TDP ratings of 160W and 145W, respectively.
Logically, we'll have to watch for more benchmarks to see whether Apple's M1 Max is what the company claims. It's fine if it doesn't beat the latest and greatest GPUs from Nvidia or AMD since Apple didn't conceive the M1 Max for gaming. Instead, the 5nm SoC is tailored for professionals to deliver potent CPU and graphics performance on-the-go in the new MacBook Pros.
