Unsurprisingly, the performance of the new Mac Studio with M3 Ultra appears to be markedly faster than its predecessor, at least according to initial benchmarks.
Following the first benchmarks of the M4 Max in the new Mac Studio, initial figures are starting to appear for the M3 Ultra version. Compared to the previous Mac Studio’s M2 Ultra, Geekbench shows improvements that will be significantly noticeable in the most demanding uses.
There will be more sets of figures for the Mac Studio’s M3 Ultra once the machine is users’ hands. However for now, the headline is that it is between 16% and 30% faster than its predecessor.
In November 2024, AppleInsider compared how Apple Silicon had improved since the M1. At that point, the then-current M2 Ultra Mac Studio scored 2777 single core and 21351 multi-core, in Geekbench testing.
By comparison, the first Geekbench figures for the M3 Ultra show a single-core score of 3221, which is approximately 16% faster. The M3 Ultra multi core score is 27749, or approximately 30% faster than the M2 Ultra.
In Metal GPU benchmarking, the M2 Ultra scored 221824, compared to the M3 Ultra’s 259668. That makes the new machine faster by 17%.
Compared to the M4 Max
The Mac Studio is also available with an M4 Max processor, and benchmarks for that chip have been established in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. Once again, the M3 Ultra beats the M4 Max — but only in the multi-core test.
For that, the M3 Ultra’s 27749 score is around 7.8% faster than the M4 Max, with its 25735. That’s a decent improvement, even if it may not be noticed by most users.
We’ve seen this before on benchmarks with the M2 Ultra. There not being a huge separation in multi-core benchmarking is mostly an artifact of how the benchmarks work, as the real-world gains for the M2 Ultra were clear.
It’s only with the single core that the M3 Ultra disappoints, though. For that, the M4 Max scores 3930 compared to the M3 Ultra’s 3221 — meaning that the M4 Max is some 22% faster for nearly every “casual” computing job.
It does seen to prove, though, that most users not involved in deep computation will be better served with the less expensive M4 Max version of the Mac Studio.
Compared to the M3 Max
It’s not a surprise that the M3 Ultra processor is faster than its predecessor. Nor is it a shock that what Apple says is the fastest Mac they’ve ever made should also beat the M3 Max processor in the MacBook Pro.
But the margin of victory is noteworthy. For the GPU, where the M3 Ultra’s Metal score is 259668, the M3 Max MacBook Pro managed 155991.
That makes the new Mac Studio a fraction over 66% faster than the M3 Max MacBook Pro. This is the most significant difference, though, with other scores coming in closer.
For instance, the multi-core score for the M3 Ultra is 33.5% faster than that of the M3 Max. The scores are 27749 for the M3 Ultra, and 20785 for the M3 Max.
That’s still appreciably faster, but users will need to be on very time-pressured work to notice the single core difference. In that case, the M3 Ultra scores 3221, but the M3 Max is on 2971 for a difference of just over 8%.
With only one example showing in the Geekbench listings so far, any figures have to be considered preliminary at best. But the earliest figures comparing the benchmarks of the M4 Pro versus the M2 Ultra proved to be broadly correct.
