PC benchmarking tool 3D Mark arrives on macOS
Following a debut of 3DMark Steel Nomad Light on iPhone, the full 3D Mark testing suite has arrived on macOS for a native testing experience.
3D Mark benchmarking tool arrives on macOS
Released on Thursday, the Mac native version even in demo mode includes the Wild Life Extreme, Solar Bay, Steel Nomad, and Steel Nomad Light, some of which weren't in the iPhone version and only on Windows.
The native Mac version was developed because the company noted that one in six iOS results were being run on Mac. Notably, running an iOS application on a macOS device can impact the results, as iOS application maximum frame rates are limited to the system's display refresh rate.
All of the benchmarks are native, using the Metal API. This particular benchmark suite is designed to test the device's 3D rendering and CPU power as a whole, rather than AI tasking, general workloads, and the like.
Unlike some benchmarking packages, the developer says that the results are fully cross-platform. That means that the results are comparable across Windows, iOS, and Android devices.
Paid features include Explorer Mode for Steel Nomad benchmarks. This allows the use of a controller to explore the scenes, and take custom imagery.
Other paid features include saving results to an account, sound, a custom mode for benchmarks at different resolutions, looping of benchmarks for thermal testing, and HDR.
The 3DMark suite for macOS is available through Steam. It will also roll out to the Epic Games Store and directly from 3DMark.com soon.
The demo is free. The paid version sells for $35, is cross-platform, and oddly has Steam achievements. It requires an Apple Silicon Mac.
AppleInsider will be adding the benchmark to our testing suite. If you run the package on your Mac, we'd like to see your results in the forums.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Steel Nomad - 3577
https://www.3dmark.com/snmac/994
https://www.3dmark.com/3dmmac/2006
Wild Life Extreme - 38253
https://www.3dmark.com/3dmmac/2012
https://www.3dmark.com/sn/4455079
https://www.3dmark.com/sb/264253
Wild Life Extreme - 69014
https://www.3dmark.com/wl/318613
Steel Nomad - 1754
Solar Bay - 22008
Wild Life Extreme - 17910
Even with the M4 Max, Apple still has long way to go.
5070 laptop (~100W):
https://www.3dmark.com/sn/6066166 (Steel Nomad - 3166)
https://www.3dmark.com/sb/301082 (Solar Bay - 67588)
https://www.3dmark.com/wl/477536 (Wild Life Extreme - 25707)
Desktop GPUs like the 4090-5090 are 400-500W GPUs.
M3 Ultra is a bit higher (about the same as a 5080 laptop):
https://www.3dmark.com/snmac/876 (Steel Nomad - 5519)
https://www.3dmark.com/sbmac/624 (Solar Bay - 81084)
https://www.3dmark.com/wlmac/340 (Wild Life Extreme - 51896)
If there was an M4 Ultra, this would be about 25% faster.
If there was an M4 Extreme (quad Max GPU), this would be competitive with the fastest PC GPU, the 5090, but this would also use 400-500W. Only the Mac Pro chassis would be able to handle this and the sales volume at that price point would't justify it.
The main thing is they are competitive in the laptop space as that's the majority of users and they have the advantage with unified memory.
Apple has explained their priority time and time again, most prominently during the 2020 keynote when they revealed Apple Silicon architecture. Johny Srouji -- currently SVP Hardware Technologies -- repeatedly emphasized that Apple was focused on performance-per-watt. He pounded that concept over and over during that keynote. Clearly some people still haven't gotten the memo.
Apple is not trying to dethrone Nvidia's top GPU or Intel/AMD's top CPU. They want great performance at a fraction of the power consumption.
They have no interest in being in the top spot in (fill_in_the_blank) benchmark table.