Apple M3 GPU (10-core) vs Adreno X2-90

We compared two integrated laptop graphics cards: the Apple M3 GPU (10-core) with 160 pipelines and 1280 shaders against the 1 year and 11 months newer Adreno X2-90 that utilizes 12 pipelines and 2048 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of Adreno X2-90 over M3 GPU (10-core)
Reasons to consider the Adreno X2-90
  • Performs significantly better (up to 47%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • 2.2x higher maximum theoretical performance (7.6 vs 3.5 TFLOPS)
  • Has 2.2x higher memory bandwidth: 228 vs 102.4 GB/s
  • Has 60% more shading units (2048 vs 1280)

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
Time Spy - 3782
Solar Bay 13531 24300
Port Royal - 1592
Fire Strike - 10039
Wild Life Extreme 8237 9890
Night Raid - 57486
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 GPU Compute

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
Background Blur 60.3 img/sec -
Face Detection 40.8 img/sec -
Horizon Detection 1.21 Gpixels/sec -
Edge Detection 1.64 Gpixels/sec -
Gaussian Blur 1.2 Gpixels/sec -
Feature Matching 0.37 Gpixels/sec -
Stereo Matching 102.6 Gpixels/sec -
Particle Physics 3293.3 FPS -
API OpenCL -
Sources: Geekbench [3]

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
G2D Mark - 604
DirectX 11 - 58 FPS
DirectX 12 - 30 FPS
GPU Compute - 3552 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5] – 76 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
Sources: Blender [9] – 309 samples

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple M3 GPU (10-core)
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2025-04-24 (Alex)Geekbench 6 OpenCL31004
Adreno X2-90
No benchmark results yet

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
GB6 ML Half Precision
GB6 ML Quantized
Image Classification (SP) 1579 -
Image Segmentation (HP) 2944 -
Image Super Resolution (Q) 4425 -
Face Detection (HP) 6661 -
Pose Estimation (Q) 15020 -
Text Classification (SP) 2984 -
Machine Translation (HP) 5876 -
Object Detection (SP) 1826 -
Depth Estimation (Q) 9339 -
Style Transfer (SP) 22291 -
Framework Core ML -
Backend CPU -
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of Apple M3 GPU (10-core) and Adreno X2-90

General

Vendor Apple Qualcomm
Build Integrated Integrated
Released October 31, 2023 September 25, 2025
Case Laptop Laptop
Purpose Professional Generic
Segment Mid-range Mid-range
Architecture Apple M GPU Adreno X2
GPU Codename - Adreno X2
Rival Equivalent - GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop - Apple M4 Max GPU (40-core)
Successor - Apple M5 GPU (10-Core) -
Recommended CPU - Apple M3 or above - Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-96-100) or above
Used in CPUs - Apple M3 - Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite (X2E-90-100)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite (X2E-88-100)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-94-100)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-96-100)
Laptop GPU ranking (80th and 35th place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 500 MHz 500 MHz
Boost Clock 1380 MHz 1700-1850 MHz (configurable)
Shading Units 1280 2048
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 80 128
Render Output Units (ROPs) 40 64
Compute Units (Pipelines) 160 12
Tensor Cores - No
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 55 GPixel/s 109-118 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 110 GTexel/s 218-237 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
3.5 TFLOPS
Adreno X2-90 +117%
7-7.6 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface Custom IGP
TGP 15 W -
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Fabrication Process 3 nm 3 nm
Die Size - 220 mm²
Transistor Count 13.8 billion -
Max. Temperature 100°C -

Memory

Memory Type System Shared System Shared
Memory Clock 6400 MHz -
Effective Memory Speed 12800 Mbps -
Bus 128-bit 192-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
102.4 GB/s
Adreno X2-90 +123%
228 GB/s

API

DirectX - 12.2
Vulkan - 1.4
OpenCL - 3.0
CUDA - No
Ray Tracing Yes Yes
DLSS No No
DisplayPort - 1.4

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Total votes: 1

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