Probably better to compare and test with actual softwares, not benchmarking.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It really is a bad time for M chip series. Apple keeps dwarfing the previous generation by huge margin as if the old chip means nothing. M4 Pro faster than M2 Ultra. Baseline M4 faster than M2 Pro, M4 Pro much faster than M3 Pro. I mean come on how do you think people with older M series Macs feel about that?
At this pace, next year baseline M5 chip could be faster than M4 Pro today. I do think some baby steps upgrade like NVidia GPU, or maybe iPhone A series chip feels much better for consumers as you don't feel much gutted when the next gen chip is launched.
Also the iteration update is way too fast, M3 series barely half a year old yet and M4 is already launched (on iPad Pro) and the M3 was getting punched real good. Like whoaaa, really?🤨
At this pace, next year baseline M5 chip could be faster than M4 Pro today. I do think some baby steps upgrade like NVidia GPU, or maybe iPhone A series chip feels much better for consumers as you don't feel much gutted when the next gen chip is launched.
Also the iteration update is way too fast, M3 series barely half a year old yet and M4 is already launched (on iPad Pro) and the M3 was getting punched real good. Like whoaaa, really?🤨
The base model is the value king for sure. Maybe the best value Mac of all time especially at the edu price of 499.
The mini pro seems to compete with the studio ultra on CPU benchmarks, but making the comparison fair requires maxing it to 64GB, 1TB, and gig Ethernet which takes it to $2500. Even then, you still have the differences in GPU, ports, and a few others. The base mini is absolutely the one I would (and likely will) get!
For those that actually need this much performance, best to wait a bit longer… a base M4 max studio will undoubtedly be a better performance value than a tricked out mini, if they keep the same pricing structure (which they have with the other models)… assuming they don’t discontinue it or something, haha.
That's an impressive feat to be sure, but the more impressive achievement if you ask me is comparing those numbers to non-M-series CPUs.
If those M3 Pro benchmarks are indeed real (which they probably are, based on core count and M4 performance in the iPad), then that means Apple's current midrange laptop CPU is slightly faster than the i9-14900K, Intel's current top-of-line consumer desktop CPU--a $600, 125W base power, 253W max power, beast of a chip.
Intel has made significant gains in the past 3 generations, but having your top-of-line enthusiast desktop CPU still bested by a low-pro laptop CPU speaks to how far ahead of the game Apple was for a while there.
The Ryzen 9 9950X, AMD's consumer desktop top-of-line (with a 170W base, 230W peak power draw), is I believe a bit faster than the i9-14900K, but I believe still comes in a hair behind these M4 Pro results.
...Then there's the M4 Max; with two more performance cores and double the memory bandwidth, it should turn in scores significantly higher unless there's something really wrong with it. The difference between the 10-core and 12-core M3 Max is not proportional to the core speed, with the two cores only adding about 10% to the multicore results. If the M4 Max is the same, it will presumably score around 25,000 on Geekbench, if the extra media engine processors don't boost that. If Apple has managed to do better with its thermal management (I assume that's the bottleneck on the M3 Max), and/or the beefier media unit and extra memory bandwidth have a disproportionate impact, it wouldn't be shocking to see it manage above 27,000.
[Edit: There are now a few realistic-looking M4 Max 16-core results in the Geekbench database, with it scoring a bit over 26,000. How much is due to architectural improvements and how much due to memory bandwidth it's hard to say, but a pretty impressive result regardless.]
Looking past the gamer end of Intel and AMD's chart and into workstation CPUs, there's the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX, with 96 cores and a monstrous 350W power draw. I think that's the current record-holder for CPU performance on Geekbench (it's not on their CPUs leaderboard officially yet), coming in somewhere around 28,000 or so; it'll be really interesting to see if the M4 Max can get up that high. [Edit: apparently not quite, but also pretty close.]
Intel's competing high-end-workstation W-series seems to be harder to find on the Geekbench browser, but as far as I can tell doesn't perform that much higher than the i9-14900K for the kind of tasks that Geekbench tests. The Threadripper is being marketed as a Workstation CPU, not a server CPU like the Xeon or EPYC, so it arguably should be in rough competition with Apple's Ultra series CPUs (even if those don't have ECC and presumably some of the other "workstation"-specific CPU features apart from the extra rendering engines). The M4 Max getting that close to it would be quite a feat.
If Apple ships an M4 Ultra that manages even the relatively poor core-increase-to-performance-increase of the M2 Max vs. M2 Ultra, that hypothetical M4 Ultra would be up in the 35,000 range and as far as I know completely without equal.
If those M3 Pro benchmarks are indeed real (which they probably are, based on core count and M4 performance in the iPad), then that means Apple's current midrange laptop CPU is slightly faster than the i9-14900K, Intel's current top-of-line consumer desktop CPU--a $600, 125W base power, 253W max power, beast of a chip.
Intel has made significant gains in the past 3 generations, but having your top-of-line enthusiast desktop CPU still bested by a low-pro laptop CPU speaks to how far ahead of the game Apple was for a while there.
The Ryzen 9 9950X, AMD's consumer desktop top-of-line (with a 170W base, 230W peak power draw), is I believe a bit faster than the i9-14900K, but I believe still comes in a hair behind these M4 Pro results.
...Then there's the M4 Max; with two more performance cores and double the memory bandwidth, it should turn in scores significantly higher unless there's something really wrong with it. The difference between the 10-core and 12-core M3 Max is not proportional to the core speed, with the two cores only adding about 10% to the multicore results. If the M4 Max is the same, it will presumably score around 25,000 on Geekbench, if the extra media engine processors don't boost that. If Apple has managed to do better with its thermal management (I assume that's the bottleneck on the M3 Max), and/or the beefier media unit and extra memory bandwidth have a disproportionate impact, it wouldn't be shocking to see it manage above 27,000.
[Edit: There are now a few realistic-looking M4 Max 16-core results in the Geekbench database, with it scoring a bit over 26,000. How much is due to architectural improvements and how much due to memory bandwidth it's hard to say, but a pretty impressive result regardless.]
Looking past the gamer end of Intel and AMD's chart and into workstation CPUs, there's the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX, with 96 cores and a monstrous 350W power draw. I think that's the current record-holder for CPU performance on Geekbench (it's not on their CPUs leaderboard officially yet), coming in somewhere around 28,000 or so; it'll be really interesting to see if the M4 Max can get up that high. [Edit: apparently not quite, but also pretty close.]
Intel's competing high-end-workstation W-series seems to be harder to find on the Geekbench browser, but as far as I can tell doesn't perform that much higher than the i9-14900K for the kind of tasks that Geekbench tests. The Threadripper is being marketed as a Workstation CPU, not a server CPU like the Xeon or EPYC, so it arguably should be in rough competition with Apple's Ultra series CPUs (even if those don't have ECC and presumably some of the other "workstation"-specific CPU features apart from the extra rendering engines). The M4 Max getting that close to it would be quite a feat.
If Apple ships an M4 Ultra that manages even the relatively poor core-increase-to-performance-increase of the M2 Max vs. M2 Ultra, that hypothetical M4 Ultra would be up in the 35,000 range and as far as I know completely without equal.
Last edited:
Totally agree - and Apple know this - that's why Mac Studio and Pro won't be seen until just a few months before the M5 comes out!
It sure isn't fun when you spend $5000 highest end Mac Studio to get dwarfed by $1000 M4 Pro chip a year later on a Mac Mini. I do think Apple is way too dwarfing the last gen chip as if spending more for a prosumer Mac means nothing.
You need to factor in the processor node change. Old temporary 3nm process vs. M4’s “real” 3nm process.
I can’t understand this logic. Apple makes big progress = bad, they don’t consider their customers; Apple makes incremental update = bad, they are doomed. Qualcomm will replace them. Etc etc
I think this is MBP 14"
Mac16,1 - MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2024)
Mac16,2 - iMac (24-inch, 2024)
Mac16,3 - iMac (24-inch, 2024)
Mac16,5 - MacBook Pro (16-inch, Nov 2024)
Mac16,6 - MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2024)
Mac16,7 - MacBook Pro (16-inch, Nov 2024)
Mac16,8 - MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2024)
Mac16,11 - Mac mini (2024)
Note how MBP Pro is a fair bit faster than Mac Mini Pro
Your concern is that they are advancing too quickly? WTH is this?
Because it creates confusion as when should I buy a Mac? Imagine spending $4000 for the most expensive, fully maxxed out dream setup Mac and just a year later Apple can squeeze the same performance on a base line Mac Mini?
It’s a bad time for M–series chips because [checks notes] they’re getting too fast
Exactly, I have an M1 Max Studio and was tempted by the M4 Pro mini...but I don't think the GPU performance difference would be noticeable...as well as the pricing (tricked out mini is within a couple hundred of a similar spec'd M2 Max Studio). So I'm waiting for the new Studio.
I actually can’t tell if your posts are serious or not.
It’s not $5k to $1k. It’s $4k to $2.5k, minus some huge factors that I mentioned like GPU, and a year and a half later to boot. Also, it’s not dwarfing the top end studio but barely topping it in CPU benchmarks.
Getting "too fast" is always welcome. But getting too much faster just a year later feels like you need to always wait.
Can you imagine if iPhone is getting 3x faster each year? You'd always worry and wait for next gen because you don't want to feel left out and 3x slower because new iPhone is launched.
The M4 looks like a steal. It's not far behind the M4 Pro in single core performance and about equivalent to the M3 Pro in multicore performance (similar Geekbench score and 120 GB/s for the M4 versus 150 GB/s for the M3 Pro).
Thats why whenever someone says the best time to buy something is now because there is always something better around the corner i roll my eyes
there is an absolute best timing and i waited a few months and not buy m3 products
What’s the Geekbench scores for the M4 vs the M4 Pro in single core?
Anyone know the difference between Mac16,7 & Mac16,11 ?
Both are M4 Pro, identical configs, and all bench marked machines so far have 48G of memory.
So I'd assume that is the demo config given to the media to play with.
Why is one of them ,7 and all the others ,11?
Is the 7 the Mini or a MBP?
MR is assuming that these are all Mini's.
If I was to guess, based on the leaked MBP's being Mac16,1 I'd say the 7 is the MBP.
Both are M4 Pro, identical configs, and all bench marked machines so far have 48G of memory.
So I'd assume that is the demo config given to the media to play with.
Why is one of them ,7 and all the others ,11?
Is the 7 the Mini or a MBP?
MR is assuming that these are all Mini's.
If I was to guess, based on the leaked MBP's being Mac16,1 I'd say the 7 is the MBP.
Buy it when it does what you need it to do. The M2 Ultra is still an extremely capable chip. It won't get worse just because M4 is around. If it did what you needed when you got it, it's going to keep doing that.
Anything else is just the FOMO talking.
Also, Apple typically has a very predictable launch schedule.
Exactly, this is what I was alluding to in the other thread about the 2020 MBA and iPad 3. They will sell something they know is not the best for full price and say it’s the best right up until the instant it is replaced with something far better and forgotten about completely.
I know it’s brand image and it works for them and two week return window and all that but still. Every other company in the world discounts older products. Maybe not the ultra luxury companies that Apple considers themselves one of.
Generally this is true. But they have on more than one occasion released products they knew full well they would be obsoleting less than one calendar year later. And I mean absolutely downright making completely irrelevant, not just little upgrades.
They shouldn’t do that.
I agree, old Mac will perform just like the day I bought it. I was just concerned about Apple iterates M chip a bit too often.
M3 series surely felt like an afterthought, barely a year old and already swept away with huge storm of faster, better M4 chips.