GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop vs Apple M5 Max GPU (40-core)

We performed a head-to-head comparison of the GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile 24 GB with 82 pipelines and 10496 shaders against the 1 year and 2 months newer Apple M5 Max GPU (40-core) that utilizes 640 pipelines and 5120 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
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of M5 Max GPU (40-core) over RTX 5090 Mobile
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop
  • Performs significantly better (up to 48%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • 2.7x higher maximum theoretical performance (45.3 vs 16.6 TFLOPS)
  • Supports Nvidia DLSS 4 technology
  • Has 46% higher memory bandwidth: 896 vs 614 GB/s
  • Achieves 55% more points in the GeekBench 6 Compute test (226K vs 146K)
  • Has 2.1x more shading units (10496 vs 5120)
Reasons to consider the Apple M5 Max GPU (40-core)
  • Manufactured using a more efficient 3 nm process technology

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
212
149
140
111
-
The Witcher 3
225
201
143
75
-
Counter-Strike 2
293
222
162
84
-
Far Cry 6
167
153
134
83
-
Hogwarts Legacy
151
120
97
55
-
CoD: Modern Warfare III
196
190
149
101
-
Ghost of Tsushima
135
114
96
63
-
Cyberpunk 2077
177
153
110
51
-
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
273
257
194
104
-
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 203 -
1080p Ultra 173 -
1440p Ultra 136 -
4K Ultra 81 -
Margin of Error Low Low

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 25015 -
Solar Bay 115087 79263
Port Royal 16530 -
Fire Strike 51145 -
Wild Life Extreme 47290 42423
Night Raid 177560 -
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
Background Blur 266.5 img/sec 257 img/sec
Face Detection 196.9 img/sec 182.1 img/sec
Horizon Detection 10.6 Gpixels/sec 5.4 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 15.2 Gpixels/sec 8.33 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 14.4 Gpixels/sec 8.86 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 1.89 Gpixels/sec 1.28 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 1150 Gpixels/sec 455.4 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 29783 FPS 21658 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Hardware benchmark using Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine
Cinebench 2024 GPU

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
G2D Mark 1101 -
DirectX 11 266 FPS -
DirectX 12 136 FPS -
GPU Compute 11314 Ops/s -
Sources: PassMark [5]1355 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
Sources: Blender [9], [10]75 & 201 samples

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop
No benchmark results yet
Apple M5 Max GPU (40-core)
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2026-04-16 -> Apple loverGeekBench146276
📘 2026-03-25 (Steven)Cinebench 20249283
📘 2026-03-25 (Steven)Steel Nomad Light18486

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) 12121 10711
Image Segmentation (HP) 33054 42406
Image Super Resolution (Q) 33652 42905
Face Detection (HP) 67213 73489
Pose Estimation (Q) 151395 289766
Text Classification (SP) 3209 6087
Machine Translation (HP) 6292 8881
Object Detection (SP) 15618 10130
Depth Estimation (Q) 57894 84224
Style Transfer (SP) 272117 264552
Framework ONNX Core ML
Backend DirectML GPU
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]
Results were compared using different ML frameworks

Specifications

Technical specifications of GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop and Apple M5 Max GPU (40-core)

General

Vendor Nvidia Apple
Build Discrete Integrated
Released January 6, 2025 March 3, 2026
Case Laptop Laptop
Purpose Gaming Professional
Segment High-end Mid-range
Architecture Blackwell 2.0 Apple M GPU
GPU Codename GB203-400 Custom
Recommended CPU - Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX or above - Apple M5 Max (40-сore GPU) or above
Used in CPUs - - Apple M5 Max (40-сore GPU)
Laptop GPU ranking (1st and 6th place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 990-1515 MHz (configurable) -
Boost Clock 1515-2160 MHz (configurable) 1620 MHz
Shading Units 10496 5120
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 328 320
Render Output Units (ROPs) 112 160
Compute Units (Pipelines) 82 640
Tensor Cores 328 -
Ray-tracing Cores 82 -
L1 Cache 128KB per cluster -
L2 Cache 64MB shared -
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 170-242 GPixel/s 259 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 497-708 GTexel/s 518 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
31.8-45.3 TFLOPS
16.6 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 5.0 x16 Custom
TGP 95-175 W (configurable) -
Manufacturing TSMC TSMC
Fabrication Process 4 nm 3 nm
Die Size 378 mm² -
Transistor Count 45.6 billion 28 billion
Transistor Density 120.63 MTr/mm² -
Max. Temperature - 100°C

Memory

Memory Type GDDR7 System Shared
Memory Size 24 GB -
Memory Clock 1750 MHz 9600 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 28000 Mbps -
Bus 256-bit 512-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
896 GB/s

API

DirectX 12 -
Vulkan 1.4 -
OpenGL 4.6 -
OpenCL 3.0 -
CUDA 10.1 -
Ray Tracing Yes Yes
DLSS DLSS 4 No
DisplayPort 2.1a -

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
61 (55%)
50 (45%)
Total votes: 111

User opinions

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Avatar
MachineLearningWizard May 11, 2026 at 03:29 AM
M5 Max wins for local machine learning / AI workload since it can utilize up-to 128gb unified memory as VRAM.
+5 Reply