Apple announced the new Mac Studio and MacBook Air models earlier this week with major performance gains. While we were expecting the company to bring forth its rumored M4 Ultra chip with the Mac Studio, Apple saw fit to introduce the M3 Ultra, which is now the fastest and most powerful chip the company has ever made. Early benchmarks of the M3 Ultra show the Mac Studio's graphics performance in Metal test, revealing that the device brings major gains to the table compared to the M4 Max and the older M2 Ultra chips.
Apple's new M3 Ultra chip brings significant performance gains in the graphics department, but it comes with a hefty price
A Geekbench 6 benchmark corresponding to the new Mac Studio housing the M3 Ultra chip with an 80-core GPU achieved a Metal score of 259,668, which is a major step up from the 222,582 score of the M2 Ultra chip with a 76-core GPU. If the scores have any heft to them, it would mean that the M3 Ultra chip has 16 percent faster graphics performance than the M2 Ultra chip on the Mac Studio. With the numbers in hand, we can safely conclude that the M3 Ultra chip is the fastest chip Apple has made to date.
In comparison with the 16-inch MacBook Pro equipped with an M4 Max chip with a 40-core GPU, which received an average Metal score of 187,460, the M3 Ultra chip offers up to 38 percent faster graphics performance. Take note that additional benchmarks are available as well, which are likely false based on the company's claims and its performance margin with the existing chips. These false benchmarks of the M3 Ultra chip are for the 80-core variant of the chip, and it does not sit in place.
It can be seen that the M3 Ultra chip is indeed the fastest chip Apple has ever produced. We have to take note that the chip is based on TSMC's 3nm fabrication, which is the same as the company's rest of the lineup. The chip is manufactured using Apple's UltraFusion technology, which means that it houses a combined performance of two M3 Max chips fused together. Apple is now rumored to have ditched the UltraFusion technology, which means there will be no M4 Ultra chip, as recently discovered.
We have already covered the CPU performance of the M3 Ultra chip, which shows 10 percent performance gains compared to the M4 Max chip and 29 percent faster than the M2 Ultra chip. The new Mac Studio is now available for pre-order and will launch in stores on March 12. The price starts at $1,999 for the M4 Max version and $3,999 for the M3 Ultra configuration. We will share real-world performance differences with the rest of the chips, so be sure to stick around.
About the author: Ali Salman is a technology reporter for Wccftech mobile section with a specialized focus on Apple and the intellectual property that drives mobile innovation. He has cultivated a unique expertise in analyzing and deconstructing complex technology patents, translating dense legal and technical documents into clear, insightful reports on future products.
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