Apple M3 Pro & M3 Max analysis - Apple has significantly upgraded its Max CPU

Together with their different RAM capacities (18 or 36 GB in the M3 Pro; 36, 48, 96 or 128 GB in the M3 Max) as well as their different GPU configurations, the chips differ significantly from each other in terms of structure and a direct comparison shows that the new M3 Max is a significantly larger chip than the M3 Pro.

Apple has revised the GPU's entire architecture, now only using dynamic caching, whereby the cache and memory are allocated dynamically based on the actual requirements of applications. In addition, the M3 Pro/M3 Max's GPUs now support hardware-based ray tracing, mesh shading and AV1 decoding. The M3 Pro (14 or 18 GPU cores) can control two external screens in addition to the integrated display, while the M3 Max (30 or 40 GPU cores) can power four.

In order to make a meaningful comparison between the different processors and graphics cards, we will be taking a look at their power consumption in addition to their pure performance in synthetic benchmarks, from which we will then determine their efficiency. Our consumption measurements are always carried out on an external display so that we can eliminate the different internal displays as influencing factors. Nevertheless, we will be measuring the system's overall consumption, not just relying on the displayed CPU and GPU values. This is, of course, why the different chip sizes, including more RAM etc., also play a role.

The single-core performance is practically identical in all of the new M3 SoCs and in this aspect, Apple was able to increase their performance by a whopping 20 % compared to the old M2 generation. Compared to the M1 generation, their performance is even 30 % higher. The CPU itself has a power consumption of around 5.5 watts (according to Power Metrics), although we noticed some slight differences between the individual CPUs.

These slight fluctuations definitely have a major impact on efficiency, as their overall consumption is so low. The small M3 Pro with 11 CPU cores in the MacBook Pro 14 performed particularly well, even placing ahead of the Apple M3 in our measurement. The M3 Pro with 12 CPU cores performed slightly worse but it still came ahead of the old M2 Pro.

We noted significantly greater differences in their multi-core performance. Firstly, the M3 Pro offers slightly more performance than the old M2 Pro despite it having fewer performance cores, but Apple has also been able to reduce its power consumption. The small M3 Pro with 11 CPU cores consumes around 24 watts (M2 Pro with 10 cores: around 27 watts); the M3 Pro with 12 CPU cores consumes about 27 watts (M2 Pro with 12 cores: around 34 watts). More performance with lower consumption naturally means significantly better efficiency, and the new M3 Pro is clearly the leader in this respect.

We have so far only been able to test the top-of-the-range version of the M3 Max with 16 CPU cores and its performance advantage over the M3 Pro and the old M2 Max is a whopping 54-56 %, meaning Apple has finally gotten rid of a major point of criticism that the old models had. Although its power consumption has also increased significantly (M3 Max up to 56 watts; M2 Max up to 36 watts), its efficiency is still slightly better than the M2 Pro/M2 Max — but the M3 Max didn't come close to the M3 Pro's efficiency in our multi-core tests.

Now to compare the new Apple M3 generation with other current mobile processors from AMD and Intel. In the case of AMD, both its U-series chips and its HS processors prove to be interesting competitors, while Intel's main competitors are the Raptor Lake P and Raptor Lake H processors.

Let's start with single-core performance. Here, you can clearly see what a big step Apple has taken with its M3 generation. Despite its low power consumption, its new performance core can easily keep up with the performance cores of the current Raptor Lake CPUs from Intel, which require significantly more power. Only the i9 CPUs from Intel (H or HX) offer slightly more performance thanks to their high turbo clocks, but they fall significantly behind in terms of efficiency. However, all other CPUs (Ryzen 9 7945HX, Core i7-13700HX  etc.) are kept in check by the Apple M3 chips.

In our multi-core tests, the tide changes a little, as the HX CPUs from AMD (Ryzen 9) and Intel (Core i9-HX) offer more performance than the M3 Max can, especially during the Cinebench R23 test. However, you shouldn't forget that they consume significantly more power (well over 100 watts).

The M3 Pro, on the other hand, is on par with slower variants of the 45-watt CPUs from AMD and Intel, such as the Ryzen 9 7940HS or the Core i7-13700H. However, these slower variants also require more power, which can be seen from their efficiency. However, AMD is still within striking distance, especially with its Ryzen 7 7840U — only beaten by the new M3 Pro with 11 CPU cores in terms of multi-core efficiency. Intel, on the other hand, falls significantly behind and can hardly compete in this aspect.

We primarily use the cross-platform 3DMark-Test Wildlife Extreme Unlimited to test graphics performance, as this gives us a good direct comparison to Windows computers. The new M3 Pro gives you a relatively small advantage of around 10 % compared to the predecessor models and the large M3 Pro GPU can keep up with the RTX 4050 Laptop or a slower variant of the RTX 4060 Laptop. In our OpenCL test from Geekbench, the GeForce CPUs did much better.

During the 3DMark test, the new M3 Max GPU with 40 cores (maximum 60 watts) came 25 % ahead of the old M2 Max GPU with 38 cores (maximum 64 watts) and only 9 % behind the dedicated GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop with a TGP of 125 watts. However, the M3 Max GPU's OpenCL performance was again significantly worse and it even fell behind the GeForce RTX 4060 laptop (80-watt TGP).

When looking at efficiency, we have to reach for the Windows game The Witcher 3, as this gives us the most comparative values and the CPU load is quite low. Of course, this is not an optimal starting situation for the MacBooks and the resulting values are not fully comparable with Windows laptops, as only the emulated version runs on the Macs via CrossOver. This naturally also costs some performance. With last year's M2 Pro models, we also carried out the test on MacBooks for the first time and they were able to take the lead in the comparison field.

The new M3 models (both M3 Pro versions and M3 Max) came out on top despite these poor conditions, although the RTX 4090 Laptop (125 watts) in the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 wasn't much worse and it, of course, offers significantly more gaming performance overall.

Prior to the new M3 MacBooks being announced, Qualcomm presented its new Snapdragon X Elite SoC and also published some benchmark results that are able to provide us with a good comparison. Two systems were shown, one with a reference design of 23 watts and one with 80 watts.

In terms of CPU performance, the Snapdragon performs well overall. Although the M3 models were faster in the single-core tests, their lead wasn't all too large. In the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test, however, the reference system with 23 watts came ahead of the M3 and the M3 Pro with 11 CPU cores and the gap to the M3 Pro with 12 CPU cores was only 10 %. The 80-watt system did better than the M3 Pro models, but it couldn't keep up with the new M3 Max with 16 CPU cores when it came to performance.

The GPU performance looks worse, as even the more powerful 80-watt reference system of the Snapdragon X Elite can only beat the 10-core GPU of the normal Apple M3, but all other GPUs of the M3 Pro/Max models are more powerful.