Apple M3 Ultra vs M2 Ultra
95
out of 100
VS
79
out of 100
We compared two CPUs: the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 Ultra (desktop) with 32-cores against the 3.5 GHz M2 Ultra (laptop) with 24-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.
Review
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
The "iGPU" and "Power Efficiency" have a minor impact on the NanoReview Score for desktop CPU.
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
Value for money (Beta)
Key Differences
Advantages of Apple M3 Ultra
- Supports up to 512 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
- Newer - released 1 year and 10 months later
- More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 5 nanometers
- Has 8 more physical cores
- 22% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3266 vs 2685 points
Test in Benchmarks
Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasksCinebench
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
| Cinebench 2026 (Multi) | 11987 | 7481 |
Cinebench Scores (2nd and 31st place)
GeekBench v6
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
| File compression | 2690 MB/sec | 2140 MB/sec |
| Clang compilation | 319.2 Klines/sec | 226.4 Klines/sec |
| HTML 5 Browser | 819.6 pages/sec | 569.8 pages/sec |
| PDF Renderer | 701.5 Mpixels/sec | 603.6 Mpixels/sec |
| Text processing | 327.5 pages/sec | 272.4 pages/sec |
| Background blur | 63.2 images/sec | 56.5 images/sec |
| Photo processing | 190.9 images/sec | 170.7 images/sec |
| Ray tracing | 61.5 Mpixels/sec | 33.8 Mpixels/sec |
PassMark
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
| Integer math | 181.6 GOps/sec | 117.4 GOps/sec |
| Floating point math | 183.5 GOps/sec | 148.9 GOps/sec |
| Find prime numbers | 1063M Primes/sec | 712M Primes/sec |
| Random string sorting | 123.1M Strings/sec | 83.7M Strings/sec |
| Data encryption | 49.4 GBytes/sec | 32 GBytes/sec |
| Data compression | 1076.9 MBytes/sec | 682.7 MBytes/sec |
| Physics | 8863 Frames/sec | 7650 Frames/sec |
| Extended instructions | 55.1B Matrices/sec | 33.2B Matrices/sec |
Blender
Blender CPU
Performance Per Watt
| Cinebench 2024 / Watt | 21.4 PPW | 24.3 PPW |
| Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt | 212.5 PPW | 267.3 PPW |
| Passmark CPU Mark / Watt | 520.4 PPW | 636.8 PPW |
| Blender / Watt | 5.13 PPW | 6.27 PPW |
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.
Recent User Tests
Apple M3 Ultra
| Date | Benchmark | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 📘 2025-08-13 (Losito) | Cinebench 2024 | 93 / 2422 |
| 📘 2025-03-17 (Luigi9212) | Cinebench 2024 | 148 / 2818 |
| 📘 2025-03-16 (Tyler) | Cinebench 2024 | 133 / 2753 |
Apple M2 Ultra
No benchmark results yet
Specifications
Full technical specification of Apple M3 Ultra and M2 UltraGeneral
| Vendor | Apple | Apple |
| Released | March 5, 2025 | May 5, 2023 |
| Type | Desktop | Laptop |
| Instruction Set | ARMv8 | ARMv8 |
| Codename | Apple M3 | Apple M2 |
| Integrated GPU | Apple M3 Ultra GPU (80-core) | Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) |
| Successor | - | - Apple M4 Ultra |
CPU
| P-Cores | 24 | 16 |
| P-Threads | 24 | 16 |
| Base Frequency (P) | 4.05 GHz | 3.5 GHz |
| E-Cores | 8 | 8 |
| E-Threads | 8 | 8 |
| Base Frequency (E) | 2.75 GHz | 2.4 GHz |
| Total Cores | 32 | 24 |
| Total Threads | 32 | 24 |
| Bus Frequency | 100 MHz | - |
| Multiplier | 40x | 35x |
| L1 Cache | 192K (per core) | 192K (per core) |
| L2 Cache | 64MB (shared) | 64MB (shared) |
| Unlocked Multiplier | No | No |
Package
| Transistors | 184 billions | 134 billions |
| Fabrication Process | 3 nm | 5 nm |
| TDP (PL1) | 140 W | 80 W |
| Socket | Apple M-Socket | Apple M-Socket |
| Peak Temperature | 100°C | 100°C |
Desktop CPU ranking (#4th place)
Laptop processors ranking (#24th place)
iGPU
| Integrated Graphics | Apple M3 Ultra GPU (80-core) | Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1380 MHz | 1398 MHz |
| Shading Units | 10240 | - |
| TMUs | 640 | - |
| ROPs | 320 | - |
| Execution Units | 1280 | - |
| TGP | 140 W | - |
iGPU FLOPS
Memory Support
| Memory Types | - LPDDR5-6400 | - LPDDR5-6400 |
| Max. Memory Size | 512 GB | 192 GB |
| Memory Channels | 64 | 8 |
| Max. Memory Bandwidth | 819.3 GB/s | 819.2 GB/s |
| ECC Support | No | No |
Misc
| PCI Express Version | - | 4.0 |
Cast your vote
Total votes: 29