First M2 Ultra benchmarks show hefty boost in performance

The first benchmark results for the M2 Ultra have started to surface, with the latest Apple Silicon chip appearing to have an as-expected bump in performance over its predecessor.

Apple introduced the M2 Ultra on Monday as the M2 equivalent of its M1 Ultra. Less than a week after its introduction, benchmark results for the chip are now appearing online.

The first wave of Geekbench 6 results, spotted by MacRumors, seems to peg the single-core score of the M2 Ultra at around 2,800, and a multi-core score in excess of 21,000.

According to Geekbench's browser, a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra was able to reach 2,379 for the single-core mark, 17,565 for multi-core. If the new results are genuine, the single-core performance of the M2 Ultra would be in the region of 17% more than the M1 Ultra, while multi-core performance will be up almost 20%.

During the launch of the updated Mac Studio, Apple said the M2 Ultra can "deliver 20% faster performance than M1 Ultra." It also claimed the 76-core GPU was 30% faster, and the 32-core Neural Engine 40% faster.

The results are also a major bump from the last of the Intel Mac Pro models. Benchmark scores for the 128-core Xeon W-3257M used in the highest-spec Mac Pro only manages 1,377 and 10,382 in the single- and multi-core results.

In effect, the as-found M2 Ultra results appear to be more than double the scores of that Intel variant.

26 Comments

coolfactor 2332 comments · 20 Years

About 1 year ago

22july2013 3722 comments · 11 Years

Someone should sell stickers that say "Apple Inside."

ihatescreennames 1971 comments · 19 Years

22july2013 said:

Someone should sell stickers that say "Apple Inside."
https://insidesticker.com/en-us

Close enough?

bobolicious 1172 comments · 10 Years

...also perhaps importantly for some:

281948 Apple M2 Ultra
244820 AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT

150463 Apple M1 Ultra

browser.geekbench.com/metal-benchmarks...

thadec 96 comments · 2 Years

coolfactor said:

Double the Intel performance — ouch, indeed!

Way to go, Apple. Keep up the good work.

22july2013 said:

Someone should sell stickers that say "Apple Inside."

When the comparisons aren't being made against a 4 year old chip made on a 9 year old process node that was retired 2 years ago:
https://wccftech.com/apple-m2-ultra-soc-isnt-faster-than-amd-intel-last-year-desktop-cpus-50-slower-than-nvidia-rtx-4080/

And even the Intel 13900K and AMD 7950X are 2022 chips. Also, neither are workstation chips. A comparison with the AMD Threadripper 7000 and 7000 Pro that gets released in September, which will be made on the same node as the M2 Ultra, won't be particularly favorable. The M3 Extreme - which I am betting that Apple is going to launch on TSMC's 2nd gen 3nm process in 2025 - will be needed to compete, except that in 2025 the AMD Threadrippers made on TSMC's 1st gen 3nm process will be out, as will - and this is a worst case scenario for them - Intel's 5nm desktop and workstation chips.

Going forward Apple is likely going to de-emphasize direct comparisons between Apple Silicon and Intel - note that they have avoided mentioning AMD altogether - in favor of comparisons with previous generations of Apple Silicon. In a way that will be appropriate. The software that most people are going to run on the Mac Pro and Mac Studio are going to be so different from the software that most people are going to run on Threadripper and Xeon-W workstations and servers that direct comparisons will be impossible anyway.