CheckMag | Apple M2 Ultra vs the might of x86
Since the launch of Apple’s M1 CPU on November 10, 2020, the company has also made attempts to enter the workstation CPU market with the M1 Ultra in 2022 and the M2 Ultra in 2023.
Both the M1 and M2 Ultra have a unique CPU design when compared to what Intel and AMD have to offer. For starters, Apple has decided to integrate both the GPU and memory into the CPU, and the M2 Ultra boasts a memory bandwidth of 800GB/s that makes DDR5 5600 Mhz bandwidth of 69.2 GB/s look like a joke
But memory bandwidth aside, how does the M2 Ultra compare to the latest and greatest offerings from both AMD and Intel? Representing AMD, we have the Ryzen 9 7950X and from Intel we have the Core i9-13900K.
Taking a look at Cinebench R23, the Ryzen 9 7950X scored 2,021 points for Single Core and 36,910 points for Multi Core while consuming around 125 Watts. The Core i9-13900K scored 2,247 points for Single Core and 31,615 points for Multi Core while consuming around 125 Watts. Last but not least, the M2 Ultra scores 1,755 points for Single Core and 27,096 points for Multi Core (compare with our various Intel/AMD results below).
Not particularly impressive results for a platform that would set you back thousands of dollars. Both the Ryzen 9 7950X and Core i9-13900K cost under US$700 for the CPU alone and would not reach anywhere near the huge amount required for a souped-up Apple Mac Studio when fully kitted with a motherboard, RAM, storage, GPU etc. With software such as Revit and other engineering-related software still unavailable on Mac, Apple has a long way to go before it can shake x86 dominance in the workstation segment.
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