Apple's M1 Max is 1.5x faster than M1 in supposed benchmark

AppleInsider

A supposed benchmark reveals the raw performance of Apple's new M1 Max processor, with the new chip running 50% faster than 2020's entry-level M1 processor in multi-core score testing.

According to a Geekbench post on Monday, the 10-core M1 Max with 32GB of unified memory achieves a single-core score of 1749 and multi-core score of 11542, the latter representing a sizable increase in performance when compared to last year's Apple Silicon designs.

Averages for the most recent 13-inch MacBook Pro with an 8-core M1 chip show an aggregate single-core score of about 1750, while multi-core scores hover at around the 7600 mark.

The M1 Max compares favorably to all Mac systems, including those running Intel silicon. Only Mac Pro and iMac models equipped with Intel's top-end Xeon processors outperform Apple's most performant chip, according to entries in the benchmarking database.

It should be noted that the M1 Max benchmark has not been independently verified and some discrepancies exist in the presented data. Geekbench founder John Poole in a statement to MacRumors noted that the chip's base frequency is curiously low at a reported 24MHz, though the inconsistency could be the result of a software anomaly, as performance statistics line up with his expectations.

Apple introduced M1 Max alongside M1 Pro as the company's new "pro" level silicon designs. The M1 Pro features an 8- or 10-core CPU split between performance cores and at least two efficiency cores. Apple outfits up to 32GB of unified memory with its Pro silicon, RAM that is shared across CPUs and an up to 16-core GPU.

The M1 Max, available with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, comes with a 10-core CPU standard and boasts up to 64GB of memory shared with a 14-, 16-, 24- or 32-core GPU.

Read on AppleInsider

9secondkox2

This data is incorrect. 

Wait for a month. 

TheObannonFile

I’m thinking they actually mean 2.5x more powerful (150%). Not 1.5x more powerful (50%).

allegro73

TheObannonFile said:

I’m thinking they actually mean 2.5x more powerful (150%). Not 1.5x more powerful (50%).

Based on the multi-core benchmarks, it seems that it's 1.5x/50%.

red oak

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

crowley

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

red oak

Here are the historic top Mac single and multi-core scores on Geekbench.   fyi 

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

red oak

crowley said:

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

Do you know how the number of GPU cores impacts, in general, Geekbench scoring?  

crowley

red oak said:

crowley said:

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

Do you know how the number of GPU cores impacts, in general, Geekbench scoring?  

The single and multi core CPU scores wouldn't be affected at all, I should think.  I believe Geekbench do other tests as well, but I'm not well acquainted with them.

mjtomlin

crowley said:

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

The M1 has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. So performance core count doubled in Pro/Max SoC. I would say the GeekBench results are close. But we won’t really know until more people get their hands on these systems and start testing them.

But yeah, Apple has moved a lot of the heavier tasks off the CPU and onto their own specialized IP, so these systems even with only a 10 core CPU are going to be wicked fast, especially for content creators.

JustSomeGuy1

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

hodar

MacRumors noted that the chip's base frequency is curiously low at a reported 24MHz.

Really, 24 MHz?  Seems like something is wrong to me.

mjtomlin

JustSomeGuy1 said:

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

Actually Apple claimed 2x performance with 16 GPU cores, and 4x performance with 32 cores. The M1 has 8 cores. GPU performance scales linearly. CPU performance does not. Apple said the new 10-core CPU is 70% more performant then the M1. This GB score is just outside that, but that’s completely possible as these benchmark scores are usually all over the place.

And that single core number is absolutely possible if Apple is using the same cores as the M1, which they most likely are, or they would’ve called it M2 to signify different core generation as they do with the A-series. It was rumored that these SoCs were ready to go mid-year, but there were delays with the displays, so the release was pushed back.

crowley

mjtomlin said:

crowley said:

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

The M1 has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. So performance core count doubled in Pro/Max SoC. I would say the GeekBench results are close. But we won’t really know until more people get their hands on these systems and start testing them.

But yeah, Apple has moved a lot of the heavier tasks off the CPU and onto their own specialized IP, so these systems even with only a 10 core CPU are going to be wicked fast, especially for content creators.

Of course you're right, I assumed that the regular M1 had 2 efficiency cores just like the Pro and the Max, but it actually has 4.  So they've gone from 4 high performance cores in the M1 to 8 in the M1 Max.  I guess that does make a 50% Geekbench multi-core improvement look a little underwhelming.

mjtomlin

crowley said:

mjtomlin said:

crowley said:

red oak said:

Have to be honest, this benchmark seems low if it is true.   With everything they launched today (impressive),  I thought we would see single core at 2,000 and multi at 14,000+ 

We'll know the real answer by end of this week 

Why would the single core score go up?  It's the same M1 cores, just more of them.  You'll need to wait for M2 for the single core needle to move substantially.
And for multi they went from 6 high performance cores to 8, a 33% increase in the number of cores; so a 50% improvement seems better than you might otherwise expect.

The real improvements are in the memory capacity and bandwidth, the GPU, and possibly the other processing units for video and neural.

The M1 has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. So performance core count doubled in Pro/Max SoC. I would say the GeekBench results are close. But we won’t really know until more people get their hands on these systems and start testing them.

But yeah, Apple has moved a lot of the heavier tasks off the CPU and onto their own specialized IP, so these systems even with only a 10 core CPU are going to be wicked fast, especially for content creators.

Of course you're right, I assumed that the regular M1 had 2 efficiency cores just like the Pro and the Max, but it actually has 4.  So they've gone from 4 high performance cores in the M1 to 8 in the M1 Max.  I guess that does make a 50% Geekbench multi-core improvement look a little underwhelming.

Well Apple stated the performance increase was about 70%, which should put the multi-core numbers around 13,000. The results listed here are within the outlier range normally associated with Geekbench scores. If you look at M1 scores they range from 5,500 to almost 7,800. Lower scores are a result of the CPU being used by other processes while the benchmark was running. Furthermore, CPU performance does not scale linearly.

That compares close to the 18-core iMac Pro. That CPU has a TDP of 140W. The new M1’s have a TDP of 30W.

fastasleep

Apple's M1 Max is 1.5x faster than M1

Tthe headline should read "1.5x as fast" — wouldn't "1.5x faster" indicate it was 250% as fast as the M1?

The article states "the new chip running 50% faster", which is correct.

JustSomeGuy1

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

Actually Apple claimed 2x performance with 16 GPU cores, and 4x performance with 32 cores. The M1 has 8 cores. GPU performance scales linearly. CPU performance does not. Apple said the new 10-core CPU is 70% more performant then the M1. This GB score is just outside that, but that’s completely possible as these benchmark scores are usually all over the place.

And that single core number is absolutely possible if Apple is using the same cores as the M1, which they most likely are, or they would’ve called it M2 to signify different core generation as they do with the A-series. It was rumored that these SoCs were ready to go mid-year, but there were delays with the displays, so the release was pushed back.

What you wrote makes sense... but it's wrong.

If you look at the GPU performance chart Apple showed during the presentation, it compared the M1 Pro and Max GPU *not* to the M1, but rather to the 5600M in the most recent intel 16". That 5600M is markedly faster than the M1 GPU. Apple numbers were improvements of 250% and 400% respectively. You can conservatively estimate the 5600M as 50% faster than the M1 8-core - that's *very* conservative, as geekbench has it as about 200% in metal, for example. That would make the M1 Pro GPU 3.75x the speed of the M1, and the Max would be 6x faster. The most obvious way to explain this would be better memory bandwidth and SLC, but even so I doubt all that performance is coming just from a better memory subsystem. Go look at the multicore improvement in the A15 vs. A14... it's suggestive, at least. Of A15 cores, or maybe the uncore, but... something.

Of course, that also raises the question: GPU perf *should* increase linearly (as memory bandwidth is doubling too), but according to Apple it only goes up 60%. That is a big mystery, and I really want to know more about that.

Lastly, as to CPU perf: even if it were the same core as in the M1 (which I doubt), performance would *have* to go up unless they actually lowered the clock to *slower* than the M1, as I explained in the quote above.

mjtomlin

JustSomeGuy1 said:

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

Actually Apple claimed 2x performance with 16 GPU cores, and 4x performance with 32 cores. The M1 has 8 cores. GPU performance scales linearly. CPU performance does not. Apple said the new 10-core CPU is 70% more performant then the M1. This GB score is just outside that, but that’s completely possible as these benchmark scores are usually all over the place.

And that single core number is absolutely possible if Apple is using the same cores as the M1, which they most likely are, or they would’ve called it M2 to signify different core generation as they do with the A-series. It was rumored that these SoCs were ready to go mid-year, but there were delays with the displays, so the release was pushed back.

What you wrote makes sense... but it's wrong.

If you look at the GPU performance chart Apple showed during the presentation, it compared the M1 Pro and Max GPU *not* to the M1, but rather to the 5600M in the most recent intel 16". That 5600M is markedly faster than the M1 GPU. Apple numbers were improvements of 250% and 400% respectively. You can conservatively estimate the 5600M as 50% faster than the M1 8-core - that's *very* conservative, as geekbench has it as about 200% in metal, for example. That would make the M1 Pro GPU 3.75x the speed of the M1, and the Max would be 6x faster. The most obvious way to explain this would be better memory bandwidth and SLC, but even so I doubt all that performance is coming just from a better memory subsystem. Go look at the multicore improvement in the A15 vs. A14... it's suggestive, at least. Of A15 cores, or maybe the uncore, but... something.

Of course, that also raises the question: GPU perf *should* increase linearly (as memory bandwidth is doubling too), but according to Apple it only goes up 60%. That is a big mystery, and I really want to know more about that.

Lastly, as to CPU perf: even if it were the same core as in the M1 (which I doubt), performance would *have* to go up unless they actually lowered the clock to *slower* than the M1, as I explained in the quote above.

Actually I was not wrong. During the keynote they said Pro GPU was “2x faster GPU performance than M1”, Max was “4x faster GPU performance than M1”. It had nothing to do with any chart, it’s what they said. Watch the keynote. This would indicate they are using the same GPU cores as the M1. Also, the M1 GPU has a TDP of 10W, the Max has a TDP of 40W… 4x the power draw. The newer GPUs in the A15 are more performant and more efficient - these are not those. So, it would stand to reason that they’re also using the same CPU cores as well. And the 30W TDP is inline with those cores. Furthermore, they specifically said these SoC’s are based on the M1.

M1 Pro


M1 Max…

rob53

This also doesn't make sense. I didn't think Apple reused computer identifiers. Why would a MBP from 2020 use a higher last number than the brand new MBPs?

JustSomeGuy1

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

Actually Apple claimed 2x performance with 16 GPU cores, and 4x performance with 32 cores. The M1 has 8 cores. GPU performance scales linearly. CPU performance does not. Apple said the new 10-core CPU is 70% more performant then the M1. This GB score is just outside that, but that’s completely possible as these benchmark scores are usually all over the place.

And that single core number is absolutely possible if Apple is using the same cores as the M1, which they most likely are, or they would’ve called it M2 to signify different core generation as they do with the A-series. It was rumored that these SoCs were ready to go mid-year, but there were delays with the displays, so the release was pushed back.

What you wrote makes sense... but it's wrong.

If you look at the GPU performance chart Apple showed during the presentation, it compared the M1 Pro and Max GPU *not* to the M1, but rather to the 5600M in the most recent intel 16". That 5600M is markedly faster than the M1 GPU. Apple numbers were improvements of 250% and 400% respectively. You can conservatively estimate the 5600M as 50% faster than the M1 8-core - that's *very* conservative, as geekbench has it as about 200% in metal, for example. That would make the M1 Pro GPU 3.75x the speed of the M1, and the Max would be 6x faster. The most obvious way to explain this would be better memory bandwidth and SLC, but even so I doubt all that performance is coming just from a better memory subsystem. Go look at the multicore improvement in the A15 vs. A14... it's suggestive, at least. Of A15 cores, or maybe the uncore, but... something.

Of course, that also raises the question: GPU perf *should* increase linearly (as memory bandwidth is doubling too), but according to Apple it only goes up 60%. That is a big mystery, and I really want to know more about that.

Lastly, as to CPU perf: even if it were the same core as in the M1 (which I doubt), performance would *have* to go up unless they actually lowered the clock to *slower* than the M1, as I explained in the quote above.

Actually I was not wrong. During the keynote they said Pro GPU was “2x faster GPU performance than M1”, Max was “4x faster GPU performance than M1”. It had nothing to do with any chart, it’s what they said. Watch the keynote. This would indicate they are using the same GPU cores as the M1. Also, the M1 GPU has a TDP of 10W, the Max has a TDP of 40W… 4x the power draw. The newer GPUs in the A15 are more performant and more efficient - these are not those. So, it would stand to reason that they’re also using the CPU cores as well. And the 30W TDP is inline with those cores. Furthermore, they specifically said these SoC’s are based on the M1.

[graphics removed]

OK, good answer. And if the numbers you're quoting turn out to be correct, then obviously you're right about the cores. However, my numbers also come from graphics they showed during the presentation. So... Apple made two statements that strongly conflict with each other. Even more in conflict than the raw performance claims are the scaling claims - the numbers you quoted are as expected (linear for the GPU) whereas the ones I quoted were not. Guess we'll see which ones are right soon enough.

I don't think the TDP numbers are conclusive, for the same reason. And there's still the major point that the memory subsystem should improve CPU single-core scores (geekbench 5, AFAIK, doesn't live entirely in cahce). But again, we'll see soon enough.

mjtomlin

JustSomeGuy1 said:

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

mjtomlin said:

JustSomeGuy1 said:

These numbers are suspect. As I pointed out in the article about the GPU performance, GPU perf went up way more than 2x with 2x GPU cores, according to Apple's numbers (which, historically, they have not inflated). That strongly suggests that the cores are NOT M1 cores, but at least equivalent of the A15 cores.

It would be absolutely astonishing for the single-core score not to go up at all. In fact I'd say it was totally impossible. If nothing else, the new memory controller, bigger SLC, and LPDDR5 memory will all increase the single-core score. Probably by not all that much, but claiming no change at all is a huge stretch. (And that assumes no clock bump over the M1.)

The 150% bump for multicore might actually make sense with the 8-core version of the CPU (6P + 2E cores). It too seems way too low for the 10-core version of the M1 Pro.

We'll know soon enough though.

Actually Apple claimed 2x performance with 16 GPU cores, and 4x performance with 32 cores. The M1 has 8 cores. GPU performance scales linearly. CPU performance does not. Apple said the new 10-core CPU is 70% more performant then the M1. This GB score is just outside that, but that’s completely possible as these benchmark scores are usually all over the place.

And that single core number is absolutely possible if Apple is using the same cores as the M1, which they most likely are, or they would’ve called it M2 to signify different core generation as they do with the A-series. It was rumored that these SoCs were ready to go mid-year, but there were delays with the displays, so the release was pushed back.

What you wrote makes sense... but it's wrong.

If you look at the GPU performance chart Apple showed during the presentation, it compared the M1 Pro and Max GPU *not* to the M1, but rather to the 5600M in the most recent intel 16". That 5600M is markedly faster than the M1 GPU. Apple numbers were improvements of 250% and 400% respectively. You can conservatively estimate the 5600M as 50% faster than the M1 8-core - that's *very* conservative, as geekbench has it as about 200% in metal, for example. That would make the M1 Pro GPU 3.75x the speed of the M1, and the Max would be 6x faster. The most obvious way to explain this would be better memory bandwidth and SLC, but even so I doubt all that performance is coming just from a better memory subsystem. Go look at the multicore improvement in the A15 vs. A14... it's suggestive, at least. Of A15 cores, or maybe the uncore, but... something.

Of course, that also raises the question: GPU perf *should* increase linearly (as memory bandwidth is doubling too), but according to Apple it only goes up 60%. That is a big mystery, and I really want to know more about that.

Lastly, as to CPU perf: even if it were the same core as in the M1 (which I doubt), performance would *have* to go up unless they actually lowered the clock to *slower* than the M1, as I explained in the quote above.

Actually I was not wrong. During the keynote they said Pro GPU was “2x faster GPU performance than M1”, Max was “4x faster GPU performance than M1”. It had nothing to do with any chart, it’s what they said. Watch the keynote. This would indicate they are using the same GPU cores as the M1. Also, the M1 GPU has a TDP of 10W, the Max has a TDP of 40W… 4x the power draw. The newer GPUs in the A15 are more performant and more efficient - these are not those. So, it would stand to reason that they’re also using the CPU cores as well. And the 30W TDP is inline with those cores. Furthermore, they specifically said these SoC’s are based on the M1.

[graphics removed]

OK, good answer. And if the numbers you're quoting turn out to be correct, then obviously you're right about the cores. However, my numbers also come from graphics they showed during the presentation. So... Apple made two statements that strongly conflict with each other. Even more in conflict than the raw performance claims are the scaling claims - the numbers you quoted are as expected (linear for the GPU) whereas the ones I quoted were not. Guess we'll see which ones are right soon enough.

I don't think the TDP numbers are conclusive, for the same reason. And there's still the major point that the memory subsystem should improve CPU single-core scores (geekbench 5, AFAIK, doesn't live entirely in cahce). But again, we'll see soon enough.

As far as CPU benchmarking is concerned, I strongly think load/store latency is factored out otherwise you’re not really testing just the CPU. Data “bottlenecks” should not be a concern when you’re testing raw performance… Real world performance, yes, but not raw performance.

If you have slow RAM or low cache, you can’t fault CPU cores for that. All you want to time is the core’s ability to compute.