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

Apple M3 vs M2 Ultra

67 out of 100
Apple M3
VS
79 out of 100
Apple M2 Ultra
Apple M3
Apple M2 Ultra

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 with 8-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 M3
Advantages of Apple M3
  • More modern manufacturing process โ€“ 3 versus 5 nanometers
  • Newer - released 6 months later
  • 12% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3009 vs 2685 points
Advantages of Apple M2 Ultra
  • Supports up to 192 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • Around 716.8 GB/s (700%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Has 16 more physical cores

Test in Benchmarks

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

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Apple M3 +12%
140
M2 Ultra
125
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Apple M3
712
M2 Ultra +173%
1941
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 2341 7481
Cinebench Scores (#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)
Apple M3 +12%
3009
M2 Ultra
2685
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Apple M3
11815
M2 Ultra +81%
21387
File compression 1260 MB/sec 2140 MB/sec
Clang compilation 94.7 Klines/sec 226.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 264.5 pages/sec 569.8 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 313.9 Mpixels/sec 603.6 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 297 pages/sec 272.4 pages/sec
Background blur 50.2 images/sec 56.5 images/sec
Photo processing 114.8 images/sec 170.7 images/sec
Ray tracing 12.9 Mpixels/sec 33.8 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] โ€“ 438 & 728 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Apple M3 +12%
4707
M2 Ultra
4208
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Apple M3
19065
M2 Ultra +167%
50945
Integer math 42.6 GOps/sec 117.4 GOps/sec
Floating point math 48.3 GOps/sec 148.9 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 231M Primes/sec 712M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 27.3M Strings/sec 83.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 11.5 GBytes/sec 32 GBytes/sec
Data compression 225 MBytes/sec 682.7 MBytes/sec
Physics 1867 Frames/sec 7650 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 10B Matrices/sec 33.2B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] โ€“ 1563 & 201 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Apple M3
160.35
M2 Ultra +213%
501.6

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 35.6 PPW 24.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 590.8 PPW 267.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 953.3 PPW 636.8 PPW
Blender / Watt 8.02 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
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-08-22 (doannguyenmfs)Geekbench 6 CPU2991 / 11735
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-06-16 (darkknightSup)Geekbench 6 CPU2990 / 11498
Add View all (2)
Apple M2 Ultra
No benchmark results yet
Add

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M3 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 GPU Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core)
Successor - Apple M5 (10-Core) - Apple M4 Ultra

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 16
P-Threads 4 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 8 24
Total Threads 8 24
Multiplier 40x 35x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 16MB (shared) 64MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 25 billions 134 billions
Fabrication Process 3 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 20 W 80 W
Socket Apple M-Socket Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100ยฐC 100ยฐC
Laptop processors ranking (69th and 24th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M3 GPU Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core)
GPU Base Clock 500 MHz -
GPU Boost Clock 1380 MHz 1398 MHz
Shading Units 1280 -
TMUs 80 -
ROPs 40 -
Execution Units 160 -
TGP 15 W -
iGPU FLOPS
Apple M3
3.5 TFLOPS
M2 Ultra
n/a
See: Apple M3 GPU (10-core) benchmarks

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-6400 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 24 GB 192 GB
Memory Channels 8 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 102.4 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
5 (33.3%)
10 (66.7%)
Total votes: 15

Competitors

1. Apple M3 vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (4)
2. Apple M3 vs Apple M1 Pro (16)
3. Apple M3 vs Apple M1
4. Apple M3 vs Apple M1 Max (4)
5. Apple M3 vs Apple M2
6. Apple M3 vs Apple M2 Pro
7. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M3 Ultra
8. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Ultra (2)
9. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Max (16-Core)
10. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Pro (14-Core)
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

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