Apple M2 Ultra vs M1 Ultra

79 out of 100
Apple M2 Ultra
VS
71 out of 100
Apple M1 Ultra

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 Ultra with 24-cores against the 3.2 GHz M1 Ultra with 20-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
NanoReview Final Score
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Key Differences

What are the key differences between Ultra and Ultra
Advantages of Apple M2 Ultra
  • Supports up to 192 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • Newer - released 1 year and 2 months later
  • Has 4 more physical cores
  • 10% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2685 vs 2436 points

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
vs

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
125
n/a
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
M2 Ultra +19%
1941
1625
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 7481 -
Cinebench Scores (#31st place)

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
M2 Ultra +10%
2685
2436
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
M2 Ultra +15%
21387
18530
File compression 2140 MB/sec 2000 MB/sec
Clang compilation 226.4 Klines/sec 189 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 569.8 pages/sec 513.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 603.6 Mpixels/sec 548.8 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 272.4 pages/sec 250.5 pages/sec
Background blur 56.5 images/sec 42.3 images/sec
Photo processing 170.7 images/sec 151.4 images/sec
Ray tracing 33.8 Mpixels/sec 27.8 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 728 & 509 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
M2 Ultra +9%
4208
3860
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
M2 Ultra +23%
50945
41392
Integer math 117.4 GOps/sec 92.4 GOps/sec
Floating point math 148.9 GOps/sec 130.1 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 712M Primes/sec 538M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 83.7M Strings/sec 66.8M Strings/sec
Data encryption 32 GBytes/sec 24.9 GBytes/sec
Data compression 682.7 MBytes/sec 556.6 MBytes/sec
Physics 7650 Frames/sec 5558 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 33.2B Matrices/sec 25.4B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 201 & 236 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
M2 Ultra +23%
501.6
406.35

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 24.3 PPW 23.2 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 267.3 PPW 264.7 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 636.8 PPW 591.3 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.27 PPW 5.81 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M2 Ultra and M1 Ultra

General

Vendor Apple Apple
Released May 5, 2023 March 8, 2022
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set ARMv8 ARMv8
Codename Apple M2 Apple M1
Model number - APL1106/APL1W06
Integrated GPU Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) Apple M1 Ultra GPU (64-core)
Rival Equivalent - - Intel Core i9 12900K
Successor - Apple M4 Ultra - Apple M4 Ultra

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 16 16
P-Threads 16 16
Base Frequency (P) 3.5 GHz 3.2 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 8 4
E-Threads 8 4
Base Frequency (E) 2.4 GHz 2.1 GHz
Total
Total Cores 24 20
Total Threads 24 20
Multiplier 35x -
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 64MB (shared) 48MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 134 billions 114 billions
Fabrication Process 5 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 80 W 70 W
Socket Apple M-Socket Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100°C -

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) Apple M1 Ultra GPU (64-core)
GPU Base Clock - 450 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1398 MHz 1296 MHz
Shading Units - 8192
TMUs - 512
ROPs - 256
Execution Units - 1024
TGP - 120 W
iGPU FLOPS
n/a
21.2 TFLOPS

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-6400 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 192 GB 128 GB
Memory Channels 8 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 819.2 GB/s 819.2 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

PCI Express Version 4.0 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
79 (75.2%)
26 (24.8%)
Total votes: 105

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M1 Ultra or M2 Ultra?
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