Leaked M1 Ultra Mac Studio benchmarks prove it outclasses top Mac Pro

AppleInsider · March 8, 2022 11:19PM

Benchmark results for Apple's recently announced M1 Ultra chip have surfaced, revealing just how significant the performance gains in the Mac Studio are versus the highest-end Mac Pro and MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor.

The benchmark results were published at around 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday, a few hours after Apple's "Peek Performance" event. During the event, Apple unveiled its new M1 Ultra chip, which essentially combines two M1 Max chips in a single package.

Apple's M1 Ultra chip achieved a 1,793 score in single-core Geekbench 5 testing and a 24,055 score in multi-core score testing.

A source inside Apple not authorized to speak on behalf of the company confirmed to AppleInsider that the benchmarks are indeed authentic.

For comparison, Apple's Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel Xeon W scored an average of 1,152 in single-core Geekbench 5 testing and a multi-core score of 19,951.

Apple's M1 Ultra chipset

What that means, essentially, is that the M1 Ultra is 21% faster than the top-tier Mac Pro with an Intel chip in multi-core performance. When it comes to single-core performance, M1 Ultra is 56% faster, which is in-line with Apple's own claimed benchmarks.

The M1 Max, which is currently available in Apple's MacBook Pro, achieved a single-core score of 1,739 and a multi-core score of 11,680 in the same Geekbench testing. While the single-core scores are roughly comparable, the M1 Ultra's multi-core scores are 105% higher than the M1 Max.

Apple's new Mac Studio starts at $3,999 for a model with an M1 Ultra chip. It's currently available to preorder starting March 8 and in theory, will ship out to customers on Friday, March 18. However, orders are already seeing delays into April and May for some configurations.

Read on AppleInsider

viclauyyc · March 8, 2022 11:54PM

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

sflocal · March 9, 2022 12:04AM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Intel's offerings until just recently have remained stagnant on the Xeon side. It's only right to compare it with Apple's current Mac Pro offerings, even though it's 2 years old. It's still incredible how Apple has pushed the performance envelope in those two years where Intel was nowhere to be seen.

While AMD's offerings is also impressive, when compared in terms of performance-per-watt, ASi outperforms them both.

strangedays · March 9, 2022 12:30AM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Can you point us to a newer Intel offering that is in production and faster?

If not, this sentiment is irrelevant. There is also something faster in development.

edited March 2022

melgross · March 9, 2022 1:24AM

Well, I was hoping to be able to test this myself soon, but apparently, even though I ordered a couple of minutes after the store went live, I’ll be waiting sometime into April for the monitor and until late April and possibly early May for the computer.

i’m using the 16” Macbook Pro with 32 graphics cores and 64GB RAM now, so I’m really interested to find out how close to a doubling in performances I’ll see with this. Double the rendering engines as well. That should prove interesting.

I'm a bit disappointed in the monitor though. I was hoping for a model that was somewhat more expensive, with miniLED, and possibly even 6K, as I’m hoping the new higher end monitor expected to come out will also use MiniLED, an advance over what it has now, and possibly go to 8K, though now I’m reading something about 7k, which is an odd resolution. But I bought this new one anyway. From what I’m reading, it should be somewhat better than the present iMac versions.

edited March 2022

viclauyyc · March 9, 2022 1:27AM

StrangeDays said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Can you point us to a newer Intel offering that is in production and faster?

If not, this sentiment is irrelevant. There is also something faster in development.

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Xeon-W-3275M-vs-Xeon-Platinum-8380

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-intel_xeon_w_3275-1160-vs-amd_epyc_7763-1908

viclauyyc · March 9, 2022 1:32AM

sflocal said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Intel's offerings until just recently have remained stagnant on the Xeon side. It's only right to compare it with Apple's current Mac Pro offerings, even though it's 2 years old. It's still incredible how Apple has pushed the performance envelope in those two years where Intel was nowhere to be seen.

While AMD's offerings is also impressive, when compared in terms of performance-per-watt, ASi outperforms them both.

Honestly, I don’t understand why Apple is so emphasis on performance/watt. Sure save energy is good and less noise from fan. But no one really care if their $100000 sports car use much less gas than the next car. People care about how fast it can go and how it handle the corner, not gas/miles.

obiwanbill · March 9, 2022 1:59AM

You don’t, but I do care about performance per watt. Perhaps many others do too?

Why should I pay for something to heat my home, when I don’t have to? Why should I work beside a computer that makes a ton of noise?

Sure, I want the computer that’s the best “value”. Price, speed, noise, heat and portability are parts of the calculus I use to determine what I buy.

I bought the MacBook Air with  silicon. I installed a thermal pad on the CPU and now I get performance equivalent to the MacBook Pro 13”. Boom!

Maybe you just care about performance and price? Good for u.

👍

Obiwanbill

mikethemartian · March 9, 2022 2:10AM

viclauyyc said:

StrangeDays said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Can you point us to a newer Intel offering that is in production and faster?

If not, this sentiment is irrelevant. There is also something faster in development.

https://technical.city/en/cpu/Xeon-W-3275M-vs-Xeon-Platinum-8380
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-intel_xeon_w_3275-1160-vs-amd_epyc_7763-1908

6 TB of main memory is impressive.

fidonet127 · March 9, 2022 2:52AM

viclauyyc said:

sflocal said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Intel's offerings until just recently have remained stagnant on the Xeon side. It's only right to compare it with Apple's current Mac Pro offerings, even though it's 2 years old. It's still incredible how Apple has pushed the performance envelope in those two years where Intel was nowhere to be seen.

While AMD's offerings is also impressive, when compared in terms of performance-per-watt, ASi outperforms them both.

Honestly, I don’t understand why Apple is so emphasis on performance/watt. Sure save energy is good and less noise from fan. But no one really care if their $100000 sports car use much less gas than the next car. People care about how fast it can go and how it handle the corner, not gas/miles.

Many reasons to be energy efficient. Apple is pushing and being pushed to be environmentally friendly. More efficient computers is less power, fan usage, and cooling needed. One computer isn’t significant, millions of computers are. More efficient computers allow longer run time on UPSs during a power outage. Solar is still expensive, so. Using less power, means less solar is needed. Think about racks of these computers. I’m warmed up behind a half rack of servers in a cold room. Power efficiency is a huge deal when dealing with a rack or more of computers.

rob53 · March 9, 2022 3:45AM

Fidonet127 said:

viclauyyc said:

sflocal said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Intel's offerings until just recently have remained stagnant on the Xeon side. It's only right to compare it with Apple's current Mac Pro offerings, even though it's 2 years old. It's still incredible how Apple has pushed the performance envelope in those two years where Intel was nowhere to be seen.

While AMD's offerings is also impressive, when compared in terms of performance-per-watt, ASi outperforms them both.

Honestly, I don’t understand why Apple is so emphasis on performance/watt. Sure save energy is good and less noise from fan. But no one really care if their $100000 sports car use much less gas than the next car. People care about how fast it can go and how it handle the corner, not gas/miles.

Many reasons to be energy efficient. Apple is pushing and being pushed to be environmentally friendly. More efficient computers is less power, fan usage, and cooling needed. One computer isn’t significant, millions of computers are. More efficient computers allow longer run time on UPSs during a power outage. Solar is still expensive, so. Using less power, means less solar is needed. Think about racks of these computers. I’m warmed up behind a half rack of servers in a cold room. Power efficiency is a huge deal when dealing with a rack or more of computers.

Most people complain about fan noise along with everything in the room heating up. The new Intel CPUs and most GPUs already need dedicated 15-20A outlets because of the high power requirements. This usually requires a good electrician or a dedicated room with multiple dedicated outlets to power everything. The new Mac Studio has a max power of 370W, basically 3A. This means you can share a 15-20A outlet among five Macs, something every residential house comes standard with.

If you want to rack mount these, they won't fit in the current 19" rack assemblies but I'm sure these will be available very soon. Turning them on their side lets you put five in a 3 or 4U rack. That's 15A/120V per shelf. A rack of these could use a much lower kVA UPS than the old Intel Mac minis. I wish I was still working, I would have ordered several right away.

evolvingtech · March 9, 2022 4:39AM

rob53 said:

Turning them on their side lets you put five in a 3 or 4U rack. That's 15A/120V per shelf. A rack of these could use a much lower kVA UPS than the old Intel Mac minis. I wish I was still working, I would have ordered several right away.

Turning them on their side may not be effective from a thermal cooling perspective, as they are probably designed to utilize the fact that hot air flows upward. Turning on the side could give rise to some measurable thermal imbalance. Whether this would be significant or not; this will become clear as the Mac Studio Ultras become available.

detnator · March 9, 2022 6:30AM

melgross said:

Well, I was hoping to be able to test this myself soon, but apparently, even though I ordered a couple of minutes after the store went live, I’ll be waiting sometime into April for the monitor and until late April and possibly early May for the computer.

i’m using the 16” Macbook Pro with 32 graphics cores and 64GB RAM now, so I’m really interested to find out how close to a doubling in performances I’ll see with this. Double the rendering engines as well. That should prove interesting.

I'm a bit disappointed in the monitor though. I was hoping for a model that was somewhat more expensive, with miniLED, and possibly even 6K, as I’m hoping the new higher end monitor expected to come out will also use MiniLED, an advance over what it has now, and possibly go to 8K, though now I’m reading something about 7k, which is an odd resolution. But I bought this new one anyway. From what I’m reading, it should be somewhat better than the present iMac versions.

Indeed. I sat refreshing the store page every few seconds starting before the event ended. About five minutes later it appeared and I immediately ordered two of the displays, checking out with Apple Pay within a few seconds. Current delivery timing is March 24-31. These things are either in very short supply, or everyone wants them.

mjtomlin · March 9, 2022 12:25PM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

But let's also not forget the cores in the Ultra are 18 months old now, first released in the Fall 2020, in the A14, so I'd say it is a fairly valid comparison. Especially when also considering the price of Xeons... that 28-core is a $7,000US upgrade option. The CPU/GPU cores in the upcoming A16 should have a notable increase in both performance and efficiency. I'm thinking once the transition is done, Apple will move towards amore steady upgrade cycle for all their SoC's. With the base variant (M1, M2, M3) on a yearly update alongside the A-series, and the "X" variant (Pro, Max, Ultra) updated every two years, jumping a generation each time for added perceived performance.

I'd also like to point out that on the GB5 CPU chart there is currently only 1 CPU that scored higher than the Ultra in multi-core performance... a 64-core AMD Threadripper that runs at a whopping 280W TDP, and above 350W in full "Boost" mode. Meanwhile the CPU in the Ultra tops out at 60W. One other thing of note with the Ultra is the linear CPU performance increase with each new core which is unheard of. Imagine if Apple released a discrete CPU with 64 cores!? Running at under 200W with scores well above 50,000 on GB5. Maybe this is the route Apple goes with the Mac Pro? After all, if the Ultra is the last SoC in the M1 family, maybe Apple created something unique for the Pro?

edited March 2022

gg1 · March 9, 2022 1:45PM

I'm speculating here, but could this silicon interposer be scaled to be a 3D structure? Meaning could the forthcoming MacPro stack two or more Ultras vertically for even more CPU/GPU power? Similar to 3D memory structures?

keithw · March 9, 2022 1:45PM

As impressive as this is, (no flames here- I'm an exclusive Mac user) you have to get to Page 388 on the Geekbench 5 CPU results to get to this result of 24055. The Ryzen Threadripper 3960X 3800 MHz (24 cores) from October 2020 already beat the Ultra. The single core results are outstanding, and this much horsepower in this form factor with so little power draw is very impressive. The ASi "Mac Pro" will have a pretty high hurdle to climb with the AMD EPYC (128 cores) coming in at 75539 GB5 multi-core.

There are, of course, other factors to consider such as the unified memory, built in encoders/decoders, neural engine, etc. All in all, a lot of bang for the buck. All that said, my AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT eGPU (attached to my 5 year old iMac Pro) got a Metal GB5 score of 160166. So they have another hill to climb in their ASi "Mac Pro" when it comes to graphics performance.

lkrupp · March 9, 2022 2:46PM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Why can’t you and others accept the fact that Apple has produced something amazing here?

hammeroftruth · March 9, 2022 2:53PM

viclauyyc said:

sflocal said:

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

Intel's offerings until just recently have remained stagnant on the Xeon side. It's only right to compare it with Apple's current Mac Pro offerings, even though it's 2 years old. It's still incredible how Apple has pushed the performance envelope in those two years where Intel was nowhere to be seen.

While AMD's offerings is also impressive, when compared in terms of performance-per-watt, ASi outperforms them both.

Honestly, I don’t understand why Apple is so emphasis on performance/watt. Sure save energy is good and less noise from fan. But no one really care if their $100000 sports car use much less gas than the next car. People care about how fast it can go and how it handle the corner, not gas/miles.

Sorry these are not penile extensions. Consumers are more concerned about energy usage due to costs going up and understand that more energy used = more heat and more heat = shorter lifespan. Throw away PCs are not the droids we are looking for.

tmay · March 9, 2022 2:53PM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

That's a $12,000 plus CPU, buckaroo, so, no, not really "arguably" for PC's with 128 lanes of PCIE, but for servers...

It's also fair to state that Apple is delivering a working computer, in various levels, not just a CPU, so unquestionably excellent bang for the buck with the M1 Ultra.

edited March 2022

blastdoor · March 9, 2022 2:58PM

viclauyyc said:

Well, it looks good on number in the presentation. But let’s not forget the Ultra is comparing with a 2 year old Xeon. 2 years is a lot in computer technology. Not to mention, arguably AMD’s Epyc is the fastest CPU in the PC world.

Let’s hope the future Mac Pro will be even faster with 4/8 sets of CPU. But it might cost $8000 on the entry model.

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

The 32 core Threadripper has a score of 22,314; the 64 Core version has a multicore score of 25,133.

Those Threadrippers have TDP of nearly 300 watts. They cost about $2500 and $7000, respectively (at NewEgg).

Some thoughts:
1. Holy crap.
2. x86 chips have to throttle their clock speeds A LOT when they go from single to multi core. So their high single thread scores don't scale well at all.
3. AMD's design uses 8 chiplets for the 64 core version, which could also help explain why multicore scores don't scale well
4. Meanwhile, I'll bet the Ultra maintains the same clock speed regardless of 1 thread or 20 AND I'll bet the monster bandwidth of these chips facilitates excellent scaling
5. Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.

cheesefreeze · March 9, 2022 3:10PM

With speed like this, who needs a Mac Pro?

You can add external storage quite easily and I bet most specialized cards out there come in external Thunderbolt 4 configs too - this seems like a complete niche to me.

I just don’t see the need if they keep updating this machine to M2, M3 Max/Ultra equivalents. I can imagine a SoC isn’t ideal because if one thing breaks, the entire machine breaks, but if you break up the components into modular parts you’d lose the benefits of Apple Silicon.

Leaked M1 Ultra Mac Studio benchmarks prove it outclasses top Mac Pro

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