Home > CPU Comparison > M3 Max or M2 Ultra: what's better?

Apple M3 Max vs M2 Ultra

83 out of 100
Apple M3 Max
VS
79 out of 100
Apple M2 Ultra
Apple M3 Max
Apple M2 Ultra

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 Max with 16-cores against the 3.5 GHz M2 Ultra with 24-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments

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
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
๐Ÿ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between Ultra and Max
Advantages of Apple M3 Max
  • More modern manufacturing process โ€“ 3 versus 5 nanometers
  • Newer - released 6 months later
  • 20% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3227 vs 2685 points
Advantages of Apple M2 Ultra
  • Around 409.6 GB/s (100%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Has 8 more physical cores
  • Supports up to 192 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
M3 Max
vs
M2 Ultra

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
M3 Max +14%
142
M2 Ultra
125
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
M3 Max
1698
M2 Ultra +14%
1941
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 5133 7481
Cinebench Scores (51st and 31st place)
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
M3 Max +20%
3227
M2 Ultra
2685
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
M3 Max
21167
M2 Ultra +1%
21387
File compression 2190 MB/sec 2140 MB/sec
Clang compilation 198.5 Klines/sec 226.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 557.3 pages/sec 569.8 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 648.9 Mpixels/sec 603.6 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 309.1 pages/sec 272.4 pages/sec
Background blur 68.9 images/sec 56.5 images/sec
Photo processing 183.5 images/sec 170.7 images/sec
Ray tracing 30.6 Mpixels/sec 33.8 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] โ€“ 678 & 728 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
M3 Max +14%
4780
M2 Ultra
4208
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
M3 Max
41211
M2 Ultra +24%
50945
Integer math 91.2 GOps/sec 117.4 GOps/sec
Floating point math 131.5 GOps/sec 148.9 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 573M Primes/sec 712M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 61.7M Strings/sec 83.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 24.7 GBytes/sec 32 GBytes/sec
Data compression 530.4 MBytes/sec 682.7 MBytes/sec
Physics 4332 Frames/sec 7650 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 24.2B Matrices/sec 33.2B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] โ€“ 409 & 201 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
M3 Max
403.83
M2 Ultra +24%
501.6

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 30.3 PPW 24.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 378 PPW 267.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 735.9 PPW 636.8 PPW
Blender / Watt 7.21 PPW 6.27 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple M3 Max
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-09-27 (JayZeppelin)Cinebench 2024142 / 1698
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-04-27 (Guest #1)Cinebench 2024141 / 1459
Add View all (2)
Apple M2 Ultra
No benchmark results yet
Add

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M3 Max and M2 Ultra

General

Vendor Apple Apple
Released October 30, 2023 May 5, 2023
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set ARMv8 ARMv8
Codename Apple M3 Apple M2
Integrated GPU Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core) Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core)
Successor - Apple M5 Max (40-ัore GPU) - Apple M4 Ultra

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 12 16
P-Threads 12 16
Base Frequency (P) 4.05 GHz 3.5 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 8
E-Threads 4 8
Base Frequency (E) 2.75 GHz 2.4 GHz
Total
Total Cores 16 24
Total Threads 16 24
Multiplier 40x 35x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 32MB (shared) 64MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 92 billions 134 billions
Fabrication Process 3 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 56 W 80 W
Socket Apple M-Socket Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100ยฐC 100ยฐC
Laptop processors ranking (15th and 24th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core) Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core)
GPU Base Clock 500 MHz -
GPU Boost Clock 1380 MHz 1398 MHz
Shading Units 5120 -
TMUs 320 -
ROPs 160 -
Execution Units 640 -
TGP 60 W -
iGPU FLOPS
M3 Max
14.1 TFLOPS
M2 Ultra
n/a
See: Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core) benchmarks

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-6400 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 128 GB 192 GB
Memory Channels 32 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 409.6 GB/s 819.2 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
241 (58.6%)
170 (41.4%)
Total votes: 411

Competitors

1. Apple M3 Max vs Apple M4 Max (16-Core) (1)
2. Apple M3 Max vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (2)
3. Apple M3 Max vs Intel Core i9 14900K (10)
4. Apple M3 Max vs Apple M4 Ultra
5. Apple M3 Max vs Apple M4 Pro (12-Core)
6. Apple M3 Max vs Apple M4 Pro (14-Core)
7. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M3 Ultra
8. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Max (16-Core)
9. Apple M2 Ultra vs Intel Core i9 14900K
10. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Ultra (2)
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M2 Ultra or M3 Max?
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