Watch out, Nvidia - new benchmarks suggest Apple M4 Ultra could beat the mighty RTX 4090
Just in time for Cyberpunk 2077
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Apple’s lineup ofM4 chipsis expected to significantly enhance performance across all Macs, and the M4 Ultra could take the lead by a landslide - as new rumors suggest it could even outperform theRTX 4090GPU - the most powerful consumer graphics card in the world.
Asnoted by Wccftech, this comes from Yadim Yuryev (from Max Tech onYouTube), whoshares his expectation of the M4 Ultra scoring ‘330,000’ on the Geekbench 6 testusing the OpenCL API. This beats the RTX 4090’s current OpenCL score of 317,379, with the M4 Max sitting at 192,812.
Based onrumors of the M4 Ultra doubling the M4 Max’s GPU cores, Yuryev’s projection appears plausible, at least for both Vulkan and OpenCL APIs which are responsible for 3D graphics rendering allowing developers to optimize games for different GPU hardware. He claims ‘the GPU scaling from the leaked M4 Pro score to M4 Max is 78% higher performance’, with a safe bet of the M4 Ultra maintaining ‘worse scaling at 70% higher performance’ with the estimated 330,000 score.
This could place the M4 Ultra aboveNvidia’s flagship GPU if accurate, but it’s important to note that this wouldn’t be across the board - this is an early benchmark test, after all, and the M4 Ultra hasn’t even been announced by Apple, so this performance claim is based on extrapolating M4 Max results, which obviously isn’t an exact science.
While Apple continues to work onexpanding the Mac gaming library, there are still far too many popular games that aren’t available on the platform, but this is a step in the right direction for the Cupertino company.
What could this mean for Apple’s place within the gaming market?
Considering the rumors regarding specifications, it’s clear that Apple is packing some serious power with the M4 chips. The projected M4 Ultra performance in the aforementioned APIs could finally allow Macs to compete with the best gaming laptops and gaming PCs.
Should we be surprised? I don’t think so - especially after CD Projekt Red’s announcement ofCyberpunk 2077making its way over to the platform. It’s one of the most demanding games in this generation in terms of system requirements, so I think that alone should act as a strong indication of just how powerful the M4 chips could be (specifically the M4 Ultra) - and how confident Apple is about the gaming performance of its latest devices.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
Defeating Nvidia’s RTX 4090 in graphical performance (even if by a little) is a feat that must not be understated, and this could be the time for Apple fans to ramp up excitement levels…
You might also like…
Isaiah is a Staff Writer for the Computing channel at TechRadar. He’s spent over two years writing about all things tech, specifically games on PC, consoles, and handhelds. He started off atGameRantin 2022 after graduating from Birmingham City University in the same year, before writing atPC Guidewhich included work on deals articles, reviews, and news on PC products such as GPUs, CPUs, monitors, and more. He spends most of his time finding out about the exciting new features of upcoming GPUs, and is passionate about new game releases on PC, hoping that the ports aren’t a complete mess.
Intel Battlemage rumored for December – could new budget GPUs win over gamers neglected by Nvidia and save the Arc brand?
Nvidia RTX 5090 Ti suddenly pops up – and RTX 6000 GPUs are mentioned in trademark filings too – but don’t get excited
Arcane season 2 act 1 ending explained: who is [SPOILER], when is episode 4 coming out, and your biggest questions answered
