Apple's M3 beats Snapdragon X Elite 23W by 10% in GFXBench, surpasses M2 by 9% ^↺

Apple recently unveiled the next generation of its M-Series Mac chips, featuring a trio of state-of-the-art processors: the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. Notably, the M3 Max has recently made an impressive entrance into the limelight, further raising the performance bar for MacBooks, as confirmed by its outstanding results in Geekbench and GFXBench tests.

Meanwhile, as spotted by @jimmyjamesuk123, the base M3 has surfaced on GFXBench, exhibiting commendable performance with a score of 324 FPS in the Azet Ruins (Normal Tier, Offscreen) test. This puts the M3 at roughly 9% ahead of its predecessor, the M2, which scored about 295 FPS in the same benchmark. It's worth acknowledging that while these early benchmark figures fall short of Apple's claimed 20% improvement, they represent preliminary data, and the genuine real-world capabilities of the M3 will only become clear once it undergoes comprehensive testing by reviewers.

When comparing the M3's GPU to the recently launched Snapdragon X Elite, the M3 surpasses the latter's 23W reference score of 294 FPS by approximately 10%, while falling short of the Snapdragon's 80W reference score of 356 FPS by about 9%. This discrepancy is to be expected, given that the M3 operates on a power profile of just 20W. Based on data from these findings, it's reasonable to anticipate that the M3 Pro, featuring up to 80% more GPU cores, will easily outpace the X Elite's 80W reference score in GPU performance.

The new M3-powered 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts at US$1,599, and you can get your hands on one starting November 7. The new 24-inch iMac, also powered by the M3, starts at a more affordable US$1,299 and will also start reaching customers on November 7.