The new Apple M2 Ultra chip is powerful, but not the most powerful processor for workstations. In a comparison test, the M2 Ultra loses against Intel Xeon, Core i9 and AMD Threadripper chips.

The Apple M2 Ultra made its debut a week ago during WWDC. The chip is the latest and at the same time most powerful processor of the M family and is therefore intended for high-end Mac Pro and Mac Studio models. With 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores and 192 GB of memory, the specs sound impressive on paper. But how powerful is the chip really? No better than what Intel and AMD have to offer according to benchmark results.

The heart of the matter

The rule of thumb for laptop processors is simple: the more cores, the better. When the load is high, a processor distributes the ballast to all available cores. When one core is full, a second core takes over, and so on, until all cores are used up. Workstation processors therefore require many cores since they are used for heavy applications.

In addition to many cores, it is also important that these cores work well together. This is simulated in a known manner geek bank 5Test that we also use in our reviews to test the computing power of a laptop or smartphone. So the aim is to push the processor to its limits. The higher the score, the better suited the notebook is for heavy workloads.

With this knowledge in mind, you can better understand the results of the Apple M2 Ultra. The M2 Ultra achieved a total score of 1,956 per core, all cores together 27,945. More information about the different tests and how the final score is determined can be found in the Geekbench browser, where benchmark results are made publicly available.

Intel and AMD fare better

The benchmark results alone say very little. It doesn’t make sense until you examine the results of other processors. Tom’s Hardware did the comparison with an Intel Xeon w9-3495x, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX and an Intel Core i9-13900K. All processors you won’t find in a laptop at home, in the garden or in the kitchen, but in robust workstations and desktops.

In the single-core test, the Intel i9 is the undisputed champion with a score of 2,343. Per core, the Apple M2 Ultra (1,956) outperforms the Intel Xeon and AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. But for multi-core workloads, the Apple M2 Ultra doesn’t come close. Intel Xeon scores 56,910, AMD 47,005 and Apple 27,945. The maximum clock rate is also the lowest on the Apple M2 Ultra (3.68 GHz). The table below compares the benchmark results of the four CPUs.

Numbers don’t always give the whole picture. In practice, the Apple M2 Ultra has built-in accelerators to compensate for the lower clock speed. The processor has also been optimized to deliver the best performance for private label devices. A Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra chip can therefore definitely hold its own against workstations with an Intel or AMD processor.