Apple announced its new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips earlier this week, boosting further the already powerful M1 silicon the company released last year. The M1 Max chip features 57 billion transistors - an impressive number, considering the M1 one has 3.5 times less than that.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the M1 Max is Apple’s most powerful chip to date with eight high-performance cores, two efficiency cores, and a memory bandwidth of 400GB/sec. The GPU in the new M1 Max is also pretty interesting - it features 32 cores and according to Apple, it should offer four times the GPU performance found on the M1.
Now, thanks to a new benchmark result reported by AppleInsider, we have a peek at the numbers. An unconfirmed result popped up on Geekbench yesterday, showing an M1 Max chip with 64GB of RAM getting a Metal score of 68870.
If we compare this alleged Metal score with the mean average that the M1 managed in the same test (21800) we would find that the new GPU is at least three times faster than the one found in the previous generation silicon.
The M1 Max seems to be faster than the Radeon Pro 5600M-equipped 16-inch MacBook Pro from last year by 62%, according to Geekbench.
During the presentation, at the ''Unleashed'' event this Monday, Apple said that the fastest M1 Pro configuration, featuring a 32-core GPU, should be on par with the discrete graphics card in a gaming PC laptop, while also using 40% less power.
The mobile version of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 GPU scores north of 90,000 suggesting that the alleged Geekbench M1 Max Metal score might belong to a 24-core GPU version of the chip. Earlier this week, the first single- and multi-core CPU scores started popping up on Geekbench, showing a 50% increase over the 8-core M1.
The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro are already available for pre-order, with the first units expected to ship next week.
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Our take
It’s interesting to see Apple trying to target gamers with its new Macbooks. It’s indirect, of course, but all the comparisons with high-end laptop PC GPUs are suggesting the company wants to take a bite off that sweet gaming pie.
Can you really play AAA titles on a MacBook Pro, though? In theory, you can, and in practice, the software support is getting better with each new generation, but still - the game selection is extremely limited on a MacBook, to begin with. You can check out the M1 compatible games master list for more information.
And then there’s the price. The new 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip inside starts at $3,499 which is not a good value if you want a machine specifically designed for gaming. For $1000 less you can get a nice Alienware laptop equipped with Nvidia’s latest and greatest RTX 3080 GPU that will wipe the floor with the M1 Max GPU both in performance and compatibility.
So, the new MacBooks are still not a gaming monsters, even if Apple wants to dip its fingers into the honey pot. They're still very powerful machines for everyday computing, video and music editing and general productivity, but gaming is still a pretty far reach for Apple.
Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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