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M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat

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The first Geekbench 6 benchmark results for the M4 Pro chip surfaced today. Impressively, the results that are available so far show that the highest-end M4 Pro chip is faster than the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance.

M4-Pro-on-Blue.jpg

Here is a comparison of the results:

  • Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results)
  • Mac Studio with M2 Ultra (24-core CPU): 21,351 (average of more than 600 results)
Based on these results, the M4 Pro now holds the record of being the fastest Apple silicon chip ever in the Geekbench 6 database. Of course, it will soon be surpassed by the M4 Max chip with a 16-core CPU, but no results are available for that chip as of writing. We will publish a follow-up report with the M4 Max results once they are available.

What this means is that you can now purchase a Mac mini with a 14-core M4 Pro for $1,599 in the U.S. and get similar to faster peak performance than a Mac Studio with the 24-core M2 Ultra, a configuration that starts at $3,999.

As for year-over-year performance improvements, the M4 Pro is up to 45% faster than the highest-end M3 Pro chip in terms of multi-core CPU performance, based on the Geekbench 6 results that are available so far.

Here is a comparison of the results:

  • Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results)
  • 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro (12-core CPU): 15,282 (average of more than 4,000 results)
Read our earlier coverage of the M4 Pro announcement to learn more about the chip.

All of Apple's new Macs launch on Friday, November 8.

Article Link: M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/31/m4-pro-chip-benchmark-results/
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A friendly note that Geekbench6 is not designed for big CPUs and the multicore performance scaling drops significantly after a certain core amount due to its design to reflect common consumer tasks, which means it might not reflect the workstation tasks performance that scales well with core count, like compiling a lot of source code using all cores.
 
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Yes, this is very impressive.

Justin Cymbal said:
Does it compare to this performance comparison though:

www.macrumors.com

M3 Max Chip Around as Fast as M2 Ultra in Early Benchmark Results

The first benchmark results for Apple's M3 Max chip surfaced in the Geekbench 6 database today, providing a look at CPU performance. Based on the...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
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Yes, in this bench, M4 Pro is much faster single-core and slightly faster multi-core than both M3 Max and M2 Ultra.

In other words, for CPU, the Mac mini is now faster than the top of the line Mac Pro in this bench.

That doesn't factor in the GPU though of course.
 
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Holy **** what a difference a process node makes. I knew the one they used for M3/A17 wasn’t what they wanted, but wow. Not that it was bad, but this is what they really wanted to make. I have a feeling this is going to be the sweet spot for a while.
 
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It’s super impressive but what is missed by every M4 geekbench benchmark article is that the benchmark improvements are very uneven. There are some broad improvements to all tests but the numbers are disproportionately driven by gains in just a few tests (for example image object recognition) that benefit from new ARM CPU matrix instructions. Those tests aren’t necessarily representative because they are machine learning task that might in practice be run on the NPU or GPU, which have always been and continue to be much better at matrix tasks, and not the CPU at all.
 
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EugW said:
That doesn't factor in the GPU though of course.
Click to expand...

Right, or anything else it can do that the Mini can’t.

flybass said:
Exactly. It is impressive Apple will allow customers to purchase a computer for twice the price with worse performance…
Click to expand...

You need to have a very narrow view of what a computer is and can do to think CPU speed is the only determining factor in what gives a computer value. No one with a MacPro is going to give it up for a Mini. People that need what a MacPro does won’t be buying a Mini.

For example, a Mini might suit my needs, but I’m waiting on GPU performance numbers against tasks I do. I don’t give much of a crap about the CPU speed, as those have been fast enough for a few generations.
 
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These benchmarks omit the huge differences between the M4 and the M2 Ultra: memory bandwidth A Mac Studio M2 Ultra is rated at 800Gb/sec. I am seeing various spects for the existing M4s at 120 to 500GB/sec, but nothing definitive yet..

Remember these are unified memory platforms, shared between CPU, GPU, and NPUs. Massive multicore processors like the M2 Ultra with 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and 32 NPUs, is in an entirely different league than any Macbook M4.
 
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This is very impressive and an about-face for Apple since the M3 Pro was gimped vs. the M2 Pro. It seemed as if Apple didn’t want to make the M Pro chips too powerful. For an extra $200, the M4 Pro MacBook Pro seems like a worthwhile upgrade over the comparable M4 MacBook Pro. TB 5, faster RAM, and 4 more performance cores.
 
Charles50 said:
These benchmarks omit the huge differences between the M4 and the M2 Ultra: memory bandwidth A Mac Studio M2 Ultra is rated at 800Gb/sec. I am seeing various spects for the existing M4s at 120 to 500GB/sec, but nothing definitive yet..

Remember these are unified memory platforms, shared between CPU, GPU, and NPUs. Massive multicore processors like the M2 Ultra with 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and 32 NPUs, is in an entirely different league than any Macbook M4.
Click to expand...
Nothing definitive? Apple released the varying specs for the various chips as each machine dropped:

M4 supports up to 32GB of unified memory and has higher memory bandwidth of 120GB/s.

M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of fast unified memory and 273GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is a massive 75 percent increase over M3 Pro and 2x the bandwidth of any AI PC chip.

M4 Max supports up to 128GB of fast unified memory and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is 4x the bandwidth of the latest AI PC chip.

You can see all the details here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/10/apple-introduces-m4-pro-and-m4-max/
 
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Dulcimer said:
This doesn’t appear to be an equivalent comparison. I think M3 Pro 12c CPU had 18c GPU. M4 Pro 14c CPU has a 20c GPU.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just realized Geekbench lists CPU core count even though you're comparing Metal scores. Silly.
 
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