First Apple M1 Ultra Benchmark Posted, Nearly Matches Threadripper 3990X

Apple M1 Ultra powering Mac Studio
(Image credit: Apple)

A new Apple M1 Ultra benchmark was shared by @Benchleaks on Twitter, showcasing a jaw-dropping multi-core result in Geekbench 5 for Apple's new flagship, with a staggering 24,055 points. Performance was so good that the M1 Ultra was able to nearly close the gap with AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64 core processor, being just a few percentage points off its score.

The M1 Ultra was just announced today, as Apple's new top-of-the-line SoC for the M1 generation. The new chip is an absolute behemoth, featuring two M1 Max SoCs linked together with a new interconnect that Apple is calling UltraFusion. This effectively gives the M1 Ultra double the hardware of the M1 Max.

Core counts for the M1 Ultra have been brought up to 20 CPU cores in total, with 16 of those cores being high-performance focused and the final four running as efficiency cores. GPU core counts have also increased to 64 cores, along with an eye-watering 128GB of unified memory, running at an impressive 800GBps.

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Geekbench 5 Scores
CPUsSingle-ThreadedMulti-Threaded
Apple M1 Ultra179324055
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X121325133
Intel Core i9-12900K199717204
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X168616565

The M1 Ultra's performance is without a doubt very impressive. The multi-threaded score for this particular Geekbench 5 run came in at 24,055 points. For perspective, AMD's Threadripper 3990X with 64 Zen 2 cores is just 4.5% faster, coming in with 25,133 points.

This is incredible considering the M1 Ultra only has 20 cores, with an advertised power consumption of just 60 watts according to Apple. That would make the M1 Ultra 4.7x more efficient compared to the power-hungry 3990X with its 280W TDP.

Of course, it's no surprise that Intel's 16 core i9-12900K was also decimated in the process, showing a 40% loss compared to the M1 Ultra. AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X also suffered the same fate, with an even greater 45% loss.

The x86 CPUs do claw their way back in the single-threaded results, with the Core i9-12900K outperforming the M1 Ultra by 11.4%. However, Intel is the only winner in this scenario, with both AMD's 3990X and 5950X losing out to the M1 Ultra, by 47.8% and 6.3% respectively.

While these numbers are very impressive, this is just one benchmark. More importantly, Geekbench 5 results don't always line up with real-world performance, so we still need to take these results with a few doses of salt. It will be exciting to finally see what the M1 Ultra can do in real-world scenarios once the chip arrives in the new Mac Studio coming on March 18th.

Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • whatisupthere
    Impressive result especially for the power usage.
    Not completely unexpected when considering the M1 ultra uses 114 billion 5nm transistors while the treadripper uses 39 billion 7nm transistors. The M1 ultra chip is huge.
    Reply
  • AlyxSharkBite
    3990X is Zen2 not 3
    Reply
  • Spanky Deluxe
    I've been waiting for a machine just like this for literally years. Placed an order right after the keynote. I can finally replace my over decade old Mac Pro!
    Reply
  • gg83
    Is this really that impactful? Or just a benchmark.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    AlyxSharkBite said:
    3990X is Zen2 not 3

    lol considering TR on Zen 3 was just released offically like today!
    Reply
  • jcdentonunatco
    I just looked up 3990x geekbench scores and there are numerous above 38000.... The M1 isn't even close. Why would you report that the 3990x only got 25000? Is this supposed to be a paid Apple article or something?
    https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?page=28&q=AMD+Ryzen+Threadripper+3990X+
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    jcdentonunatco said:
    I just looked up 3990x geekbench scores and there are numerous above 38000.... The M1 isn't even close. Why would you report that the 3990x only got 25000? Is this supposed to be a paid Apple article or something?
    https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/search?page=28&q=AMD+Ryzen+Threadripper+3990X+

    not sure what happened here but even wcctech got it right and that is a low bar to pass...

    https://wccftech.com/apple-m1-ultra-soc-benchmark-leak-faster-than-intel-core-i9-12900k-amd-threadripper-3970x/
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    gg83 said:
    Is this really that impactful? Or just a benchmark.
    No one credible uses Geekbench, at least as a multiplatform benchmark. It was created by the owner of a Mac review website, so any multiplatform comparisons may be skewed in favor of Apple. I can't think of any legitimate PC hardware review sites that use Geekbench as part of their test suite. It's also a synthetic workload, not directly based on real-world software, so it's not necessarily representative of real-world workloads either. It's best to wait until the hardware is out and people have tested it in real-world software before drawing any conclusions.
    Reply
  • Historical Fidelity
    I love it how everyone compares x86 CPUs built to accept a wide array of user determined memory configurations to an entire system-on-chip design tuned to get maximum performance out of the pre-defined secondary components. I wonder how much faster zen 3 or alderlake would be compared to the m1 ultra if they too had dedicated 800Gbps memory or if the m1 ultra was limited to 3200mhz DDR4
    Reply
  • SkyBill40
    Admin said:
    A new Geekbench 5 result shows Apple's new M1 Ultra flagship going toe-to-toe with AMD's monster 64 core Threadripper 3990X, while consuming just a fifth of the power.

    First Apple M1 Ultra Benchmark Posted, Nearly Matches Threadripper 3990X : Read more

    Pffft. If you say so. It doesn't even eclipse the 3970X, and the 3990X is further above that. It's not to say the scores aren't impressive and all, but it's clear you're being a bit disingenuous here. As someone else has said and posted a link to, the Geekbench scores are contrary to what you've published.

    Funny that you also made no mention of the price: $3999. That's a HELL of a lot of coin, specs be damned. And the boast of supposed 3090 level graphics performance? Guess we'll believe that when we see it actually tested in the wild given as that sounds an awful lot like Tarzan level chest thumping from Apple with absolutely no actual substance to back it. Then again, this is coming from the manufacturer so those kind of things are pretty par for the course.
    Reply