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M3 Macs are 20% more powerful than M2, benchmark results show

Published Nov 1st, 2023 12:36PM EDT
Apple's M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch.
Image: Apple Inc.

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A few days after the Scary Fast event and the announcement of the new M3 Macs, a few benchmark results show the M3 chip scores for single-core and multi-core tests.

In these GeekBench scores, spotted by MacRumors, we see that the standard M3 chip has a single-core of around 3,000 while the multi-core score is about 11,700. For the M2 chip, it’s about 2,570 and 9,600 for single-core and multi-core, respectively.

These numbers are similar to what Apple promoted during its keynote: up to 20% faster than the previous generation. That said, we still have to see the next-generation GPU in action. Apple says it has an innovative Dynamic Caching feature and Mesh Shading for games.

These benchmark scores are probably for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, as Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman had previously mentioned that the Mac 15,3 was a MacBook Pro. The 24-inch iMac results could be slightly higher, as Apple doesn’t have to care about a draining battery.

If Apple follows the trend, it means that when we see the benchmarks for the M3 Pro and M3 Max, they will probably follow the performance below:

M3 Pro: Up to 36GB of RAM, 12-core CPU (6 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, up to 20% faster than M1 Pro). It offers an 18-core GPU, up to 40% faster than M1 Pro and up to 10% faster than M2 Pro.

M3 Max: Up to 128GB of RAM, 16-core CPU (12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, up to 80% faster than M1 Max and up to 50% faster than M2 Max). It has a 40-core GPU, up to 50% faster than M1 Max and 20% faster than M2 Max.

BGR will continue to report on Apple’s latest M3 MacBook and iMac models, including when we have the first hands-on/reviews of these computers.

José Adorno Tech News Reporter

José is a Tech News Reporter at BGR. He has previously covered Apple and iPhone news for 9to5Mac, and was a producer and web editor for Latin America broadcaster TV Globo. He is based out of Brazil.