M2 Pro & Max GPUs are fast — but not faster than M1 Ultra

Metal benchmarks for the M2 Pro and M2 Max show a 30% improvement over the previous generation, aligning with Apple's claims about speed boosts.

Reviewers have their hands on Apple's upcoming MacBook Pros, so public benchmark scores are inevitably showing up in Geekbench. The GPU scores show that Apple's claim of a 30% increase in both chips is accurate.

The M2 Pro scored 52691, while the M2 Max scored 86805. That's compared to the M1 Pro scoring 38238 and the M1 Max scoring 58856.

Scores can vary slightly based on environment, battery level, and other active processes.

These scores follow the initial M2 Pro Geekbench scores that show a big improvement over the M1 Pro, and even exceed the M1 Max. The M2 Pro scored 1952 single-core and 15013 multi-core, while the M1 Max scores 1727 single-core and 12643 multi-core.

The M2 Pro can be configured with up to a 19-core GPU, and the M2 Max can have up to a 38-core GPU. The score for the M2 Pro are for the 19-core GPU and 32GB of RAM configuration. The M2 Max test had 64GB of RAM and didn't list how many GPU cores were available.

23 Comments

jeromec 210 comments · 11 Years

About 1 year ago

Nice results. But since there are different GPU (and CPU) configurations for M1 Pro, M1 Max, M2 Pro and M2 Max, I am not sure what to do with these scores.
We only have info for the M2 Pro.

And since the CPUs are exactly the same for the "full" M2 Pro compared to M2 Mac (and similarly for M1 Pro/Mac), it is no surprise that GeekBench CPU scores for M2 Pro/Max are better than those of M1 Pro/Max.

retrogusto 1138 comments · 16 Years

I’ll be interested to see if anyone does benchmarks comparing the top two processors available in the new Mac Mini. I’m wondering if the fastest one will have any issues with throttling due to overheating in that small enclosure.

mjtomlin 2690 comments · 20 Years

retrogusto said:

I’ll be interested to see if anyone does benchmarks comparing the top two processors available in the new Mac Mini. I’m wondering if the fastest one will have any issues with throttling due to overheating in that small enclosure.

There's a fan in the mini, shouldn't have any thermal issues. If I had to guess, and I do as I couldn't find any real numbers, the higher end M2 Pro probably doesn't draw more than 100W when fully loaded. That means all GPU and CPU cores working along with memory completely full. That enclosure with a fan should definitely be able to keep it cool enough to prevent throttling.

nubus 609 comments · 8 Years

Same tests reveal that M2 Pro (12 cores) in the new desktop mini is delivering a single-thread performance of 1952 compared to MBP 14" M1 Pro (10 cores) doing 1790. The new "mini Pro" is less than 10% faster than M1 Pro laptop on single-threaded. For HTML5 and PDF (graphic design) the desktop M2 Pro is just 5% faster.

tht 5594 comments · 23 Years

mjtomlin said:

retrogusto said:

I’ll be interested to see if anyone does benchmarks comparing the top two processors available in the new Mac Mini. I’m wondering if the fastest one will have any issues with throttling due to overheating in that small enclosure.

There's a fan in the mini, shouldn't have any thermal issues. If I had to guess, and I do as I couldn't find any real numbers, the higher end M2 Pro probably doesn't draw more than 100W when fully loaded. That means all GPU and CPU cores working along with memory completely full. That enclosure with a fan should definitely be able to keep it cool enough to prevent throttling.

Apple's Tech Specs page says the mini w/M2 has 150 W of continuous power draw and the mini w/M2 Pro has 185 W of continuous power draw. So, curious. They have increased the size of the power supply to 185 W for the M2 Pro model.

4 TB ports at 15 W. 2 USBA ports at 10 W. That's 80 W, with 105 W for everything else. 40 W for the CPU cluster and 60 W for the GPU cluster, give or take. I do wonder if it can actually deliver 15 W out of every TB port and 10 W out of the USBA ports, simultaneously.