The new M1 Max chip in the 2021 MacBook Pro already wowed fans of the Apple-branded notebooks with impressive CPU benchmarks. Now, a new set of benchmarks from the M1 Max showcase just how powerful the SoC (system-on-a-chip) is.
According to the post on Geekbench, the 2021 MacBook Pro equipped with an M1 Max chip with 64GB of unified memory is capable of clocking a Metal score of 68870. This is roughly three times the score of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, which pulled in a Metal score of 21800 on Geekbench (via AppleInsider).
Apple M1 Max benchmarks wow with GPU performance
During its Unleashed event on Monday, Apple touted that the M1 Max chipset was the most powerful SoC it has ever created. The company even claimed that it was four times faster than the original M1 chip. The current benchmarks appear closer to three times faster. However, it is worth noting that we aren’t sure which configuration of the M1 Max was used in the benchmarked system.
During the original announcement, Apple said that it would offer the M1 Max in both a 24- and 32-core GPU configuration. Based on the numbers we’re seeing; some like developer Steve Troughton-Smith believe that the current benchmark we’re seeing could be based on the 24-core GPU. A big part of this belief is because the numbers fall short of the over 90,000 points seen in a laptop version of Nvidia’s RTX 3080. This is important because Apple has claimed that the M1 Max’s top performance would match that of a discrete GPU in a high-end PC laptop.
M1 continues to shine
Despite now knowing which configuration the MacBook Pro is using, the benchmarks here are still very impressive. It also arrives just after we saw the first benchmarks for the CPU in the new 2021 MacBook Pro notebooks. Those benchmarks showcased a huge increase over the original 8-core M1 seen in the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Overall, Apple’s latest SoCs are continuing to deliver fantastic numbers. Of course, benchmarks never tell the full story of just how well the device will run during everyday tasks. However, they are a good way to determine just how powerful the tech inside is. With such great scores, it’s no surprise that Apple continues to tout its computers with the M1 chip as some of the most powerful it has ever released.
