[2025 Update] Apple M4 (+ Pro / Max) vs M3 (+ Pro / Max / Ultra) vs M2 (+ Pro / Max / Ultra) vs M1 (+ Pro / Max / Ultra) – The Ultimate Benchmark Comparison!

Apple has ingeniously designed its M-series CPUs to function like legos, allowing them to pair up and create more formidable chips. For instance, the M-Ultra chips are essentially two M-Max CPUs combined, effectively doubling their resources to challenge every Intel and AMD CPU. However, today’s focus isn’t on Team Blue and Team Red; instead, we’re comparing all four generations of M-series processors.

Additionally, we’ll provide projected scores for the M4 Pro, M4 Max, and M4 Ultra processors. Let’s go!

[01/2025] Updated: Added Apple M4 (8-core CPU), M4 (10-core CPU), M4 Pro (12-core CPU), M4 Pro (14-core CPU), M4 Max (14-core CPU), and M4 Max (16-core CPU)

[03/2025] Updated: Added Apple M3 Ultra

Apple CPU lineup – The Full List

Each new generation of Apple chips brings significant upgrades, as Apple introduces more powerful and efficient architectures annually:

Apple M1 vs M2 vs M3 vs M4

First, let’s examine the progression of the “base” variant of the M-series CPUs.

Below is a summary of the single-core performance for these base variants, showcasing performance scores and percentage improvements across successive generations.

Single-Core Performance

Single-core performance is pivotal for delivering optimal speed in applications that depend heavily on the processor’s core speed, such as gaming or software compilation. It also plays a significant role in determining the overall responsiveness and efficiency of operating systems and utility applications, ensuring smooth user experiences even when multi-core optimization is not available. We’re adding the best-performing Intel chip in our Top Laptop CPU Ranking, Core i9-14900HX (2998 points), for reference.

The latest Apple M4 represents the most significant leap yet in single-core performance.

There are also two “trimmed” variants of M4 – the 8-core Apple M4 that can be found in the most budget iMac, and the 9-core Apple M4 that can be found in the most budget iPad Pro:

Multi-Core Performance

Multi-core performance is essential for handling complex and demanding tasks, such as video editing, 3D rendering, and scientific simulations.

The table below details the multi-core performance of Apple’s base M-series CPUs, highlighting score improvements and performance gains with each new generation. For context, we’ve added the top-performing Intel chip in our Top Laptop CPU Ranking, the Core i9-14900HX, which scores 17937 points.

Multi-core performance trends closely with single-core improvements, with the M4 marking the most substantial advancement. However, the base variants still trail behind the 14900HX in complex tasks.

Again, here’s a M4 variants comparison:

Now, let’s compare this to the Pro, Max, and Ultra variants of the Apple M-series.

Apple M1 Pro vs M2 Pro vs M3 Pro vs M4 Pro

The 14-core M4 Pro has 10 performance cores that deliver a crazy performance jump of 45%! This is 28% higher than Intel’s mobile flagship Core i9-14900HX.

The M4 Pro upgrade is the biggest performance jump.

Apple M1 Max vs M2 Max vs M3 Max vs M4 Max

M3 Max was the only Apple processor to outperform Intel’s flagship i9-14900HX when comparing mobile processors. M4 Pro, however, is 28% faster, but the M4 Max’ result is even more ground-breaking with its 25 760 points in the Geekbench 6 Multi-Core test.

Apple M1 Ultra vs M2 Ultra vs M3 Ultra vs M4 Ultra (Projected)

Edit [03/2025]: Apple M3 Ultra was released much later than expected but it’s here, and it’s a huge update – 33% performance jump!

This alters the projection for M4 Ultra from 33 773 pts to 35 070 pts!

Given that Ultra chips are typically used in desktop configurations, we’re swapping the mobile i9-14900HX with the desktop i9-14900K which scores 21,500 points in the Multi-Core test and is 1% faster than the M2 Ultra.

As a result, M4 Ultra is expected to be 63% faster than Intel Core i9-14900K.

The Ultimate Comparison: All Apple M-series CPUs

Now, let’s conduct a thorough comparison of all Apple M-series CPUs using actual data.

The new M4 displays multi-core performance comparable to the M2 Pro / Max. Notably, the Max variant boasts an extraordinary memory bandwidth (409.6 GB/s), which is 3-4x that of the M4 (120 GB/s) and 2x that of the M2 Pro (204.8 GB/s), proving beneficial for AI projects. The king, of course, is the Apple M3 Ultra with 28,000+ multi-core score, and 819.3 GB/s memory bandwidth.

We’ll explore this further in another article.

We’ve highlighted only the top-performing CPU variants above, where multiple versions of the same model exist. Here is the complete list of all M-series processors and their single and multi-core scores:

We hope this summary helps you decide which M-series CPU to choose.

You may also find our other analysis interesting:
The Gap is Getting Scary: Apple Leaves Intel in the Dust

And of course, don’t miss our comparison with the new exciting arrival, the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite:
Apple M4 vs Snapdragon X Elite – The Next-Gen CPU Battle

Author: Simeon NikolovEditor-in-Chief at LaptopMedia.com with 20+ years of experience in testing and analyzing laptops and mobile devices.

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yesir

1 year ago

这个文章总结的太棒了，什么神仙编辑，把我想要的信息都罗列出来了

27

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Author

Simeon Nikolov

1 year ago

Reply to  yesir

这条评论真是太温暖了，让我非常开心！谢谢你，Yesir！
—
That was the most heartwarming comment; it made my day! Thank you, Yesir!

Last edited 1 year ago by Simeon Nikolov

12

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wu wei

8 months ago

Best Apple M chips analysis

0

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Author

Simeon Nikolov

8 months ago

Reply to  wu wei

Thank you very much, wu wei!

0

Reply

abc

8 months ago

赞 赞 赞 加鸡腿

1

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Author

Simeon Nikolov

6 months ago

Reply to  abc

🙂 👍

0

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chee

6 months ago

incredible comparison design. any chance for gpu/npu?

4

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Author

Simeon Nikolov

3 months ago

Reply to  chee

Good idea!

0

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sikaco

4 months ago

Perfect analysis. There are all I want to get!

1

Reply

ntz

1 month ago

Hello, I don’t get the comparison with i9-14900K .. it’s just purposely written and depicted to make apple chips better … In reality i9 cpu that was used as a reference point is on the top of the list

0

Reply

Leo

23 days ago

Reply to  ntz

Check this out, bro, https://versus.com/en/intel-core-i9-14900hx-vs-intel-core-i9-14900k

0

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