Apple M6 GPU (12-core) vs M4 GPU (10-Core)
VS
Apple M6 GPU (12-core)
Custom
Apple M4 GPU (10-Core)
Custom
We compared two integrated laptop graphics cards: the Apple M6 GPU (12-core) with 192 pipelines and 1536 shaders against the 2 years and 4 months older M4 GPU (10-Core) that utilizes 160 pipelines and 1280 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.
Review
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
Scores marked with a red asterisk (**) represent initial estimates from early testing.
Key differences
Reasons to consider the Apple M6 GPU (12-core)
- Manufactured using a more efficient 2 nm process technology
- 29% higher maximum theoretical performance (4.9 vs 3.8 TFLOPS)
- Has 42% higher memory bandwidth: 170 vs 120 GB/s
Benchmarks
Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps3D Mark
Steel Nomad Lite Score
| Solar Bay | - | 16554 |
| Wild Life Extreme | - | 9610 |
GeekBench 6 GPU Compute
GB6 Compute Score
| Background Blur | - | 72.2 img/sec |
| Face Detection | - | 48.3 img/sec |
| Horizon Detection | - | 1.4 Gpixels/sec |
| Edge Detection | - | 1.94 Gpixels/sec |
| Gaussian Blur | - | 1.5 Gpixels/sec |
| Feature Matching | - | 0.53 Gpixels/sec |
| Stereo Matching | - | 123.3 Gpixels/sec |
| Particle Physics | - | 4938.4 FPS |
| API | - | OpenCL |
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Cinebench 2024 GPU
Artificial Intelligence Tests
Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasksGeekBench 6 ML
GB6 ML Single Precision
GB6 ML Half Precision
GB6 ML Quantized
| Image Classification (SP) | - | 4874 |
| Image Segmentation (HP) | - | 8168 |
| Image Super Resolution (Q) | - | 11983 |
| Face Detection (HP) | - | 17036 |
| Pose Estimation (Q) | - | 31171 |
| Text Classification (SP) | - | 2964 |
| Machine Translation (HP) | - | 3410 |
| Object Detection (SP) | - | 5112 |
| Depth Estimation (Q) | - | 22700 |
| Style Transfer (SP) | - | 60872 |
| Framework | - | Core ML |
| Backend | - | GPU |
Specifications
Technical specifications of Apple M6 GPU (12-core) and M4 GPU (10-Core)General
| Vendor | Apple | Apple |
| Build | Integrated | Integrated |
| Released | August 25, 2026 | May 7, 2024 |
| Case | Laptop | Laptop |
| Purpose | Generic | Professional |
| Segment | Mid-range | Mid-range |
| Architecture | Apple M GPU | Apple M GPU |
| GPU Codename | Custom | Custom |
| Rival Equivalent | - Adreno X2-90 | - Adreno X1-85 |
| Successor | - | - Apple M5 GPU (10-Core) |
| Recommended CPU | - Apple M6 (12-Core) or above | - Apple M4 (10-Core) or above |
| Used in CPUs | - Apple M6 (12-Core) | - Apple M4 (10-Core) |
Laptop GPU ranking (27th and 73rd place)
Graphics Processing Unit
| Base Clock | - | 500 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1600 MHz | 1470 MHz |
| Shading Units | 1536 | 1280 |
| Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) | 96 | 80 |
| Render Output Units (ROPs) | 80 | 40 |
| Compute Units (Pipelines) | 192 | 160 |
| Tensor Cores | No | - |
| Ray-tracing Cores | No | - |
| Instructions Per Cycle | 2 IPC | 2 IPC |
Raw Performance
| Pixel Fill Rate | 128 GPixel/s | 59 GPixel/s |
| Texture Fill Rate | 154 GTexel/s | 118 GTexel/s |
FLOPS (FP32)
Physical
| Interface | Custom | Custom |
| TGP | - | 18 W |
| Manufacturing | TSMC | TSMC |
| Fabrication Process | 2 nm | 3 nm |
| Transistor Count | - | 28 billion |
| Max. Temperature | - | 100°C |
Memory
| Memory Type | System Shared | System Shared |
| Memory Clock | 10667 MHz | 7500 MHz |
| Effective Memory Speed | - | 15000 Mbps |
| Bus | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| ECC | No | No |
Memory Bandwidth
API
| CUDA | No | - |
| Ray Tracing | Yes | Yes |
| DLSS | No | No |
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