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Introduction
Apple’s M2 Ultra SoC is the company’s new flagship design that offers performance figures claimed to surpass those of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. This chip boasts 134 billion transistors, 24 CPU cores running in a 16 (Performance) and 8 (Efficiency) configuration, up to 76 GPU cores, 192 GB of memory that is unified and accessible across the whole chip at a maximum bandwidth of 800 GB/s, and a new Neural Engine upgraded with 32 cores. In this article, we will analyze the leaked benchmarking results to see if the new SoC really delivers the claimed performance figures and we will compare those numbers to AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA chips.
Apple M2 Ultra Is Slow Than Last-Year CPUs From Intel & AMD, 50% Slower Than NVIDIA RTX 4080
The performance benchmarks of the Apple M2 Ultra SoC were leaked within Geekbench 6 and the older Geekbench 5. We get a taste of both the CPU and GPU performance since compute results have also been leaked. So let’s start with the CPU side.
CPU Performance
The CPU managed to post a single-core score of up to 2809 points in single-core and 21,531 points in the multi-core tests. For comparison, the Intel Core i9-13900KS scores 3083 points while AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X scores 2875 points. In multi-threaded benchmarks, the same chips score 21665 and 19342 points, respectively. Therefore, the workstation-grade Apple M2 Ultra SoC doesn’t outperform the mainstream CPU offerings from Intel and AMD.
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If you compare the chip to something like an AMD Threadripper and Intel Xeon W chip, then those would absolutely crush the M2 Ultra in the multi-threaded tests, but the single-threaded lead will be on Apple’s M2 Ultra since AMD & Intel Pro CPUs are designed for multi-threaded heavy workloads and that’s where they extend their multi-core leadership to.
GPU Performance
Moving on to the Compute benchmarks, here’s where I saw comparisons being made against the NVIDIA RTX 4080 and AMD GPUs within the Metal API which is predominantly optimized for Apple SoC’s. NVIDIA and AMD GPUs aren’t known for their Metal specific optimizations since the market share of those GPUs running Apple OS is very small and non-existent.
In OpenCL, the M2 Ultra SoC ends up 50% slower than NVIDIA’s RTX 4080, and that’s not even the flagship GPU. In the more popular OpenCL API, the Apple M2 Ultra only ends up close to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti which is a mainstream graphics card. This is the full 76 GPU core configuration of the M2 Ultra that we are comparing.
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Conclusion
The M2 Ultra doesn’t quite deliver what was promised for all its components. The CPU performance is lower than last year’s mainstream processor offerings from AMD and Intel, while the GPU performance is slower than NVIDIA’s RTX 4080, which isn’t even the flagship GPU. The benchmarks results indicate that it’s wiser to take the promised numbers and performance presented by Apple with a grain of salt, and it is best to look at impartial results to see if the numbers hold up to their claims.
Furthermore, the M2 Ultra SOC-based Mac Pro offerings from Apple come at a base price of $7000 US, and that’s not even using the full SoC specs or the 192 GB unified memory. These components can add up to a pretty expensive price tag for the Apple user.
FAQs
What is the Apple M2 Ultra SoC?
The Apple M2 Ultra SoC is the company’s new flagship design that offers performance figures claimed to surpass those of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA.
What does the Apple M2 Ultra SoC contain?
The Apple M2 Ultra SoC boasts 134 billion transistors, 24 CPU cores running in a 16 (Performance) and 8 (Efficiency) configuration, up to 76 GPU cores, 192 GB of memory that is unified and accessible across the whole chip at a maximum bandwidth of 800 GB/s, and a new Neural Engine upgraded with 32 cores.
What are the CPU performance benchmarks for the Apple M2 Ultra SoC?
The CPU managed to post a single-core score of up to 2809 points in single-core and 21,531 points in the multi-core tests. For comparison, the Intel Core i9-13900KS scores 3083 points while AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X scores 2875 points. In multi-threaded benchmarks, the same chips score 21665 and 19342 points, respectively.
What are the GPU performance benchmarks for the Apple M2 Ultra SoC?
In OpenCL, the M2 Ultra SoC ends up 50% slower than NVIDIA’s RTX 4080, and that’s not even the flagship GPU. In the OpenCL API, the Apple M2 Ultra only ends up close to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti which is a mainstream graphics card.
What is the price of a Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra SoC?
The M2 Ultra SOC-based Mac Pro offerings from Apple come at a base price of $7000 US, and that’s not even using the full SoC specs or the 192 GB unified memory. These components can add up to a pretty expensive price tag for the Apple user.
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