Multiple MacBook Pro 16 M1 Pro vs M1 Max benchmark results indicate much greater price-performance ratio for the M1 Pro Apple Silicon

The popular TechTuber Luke Miani has posted a new video comparing an M1 Pro-based Apple MacBook Pro 16 with a model featuring the more-powerful M1 Max SoC and additional RAM. The host put the MacBooks through 20 benchmarks to give viewers a thorough idea of just how powerful the new Apple laptops are. The M1 Max model was also tested in the same benchmarks in high-power mode, with the arguably disappointing results initially not shining a good light on this particular feature. Miani details how much the laptops cost, with the M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16 (16-core GPU, 16 GB RAM) costing US$2,699 and the M1 Max MacBook Pro 16 (32-core GPU, 64 GB RAM) requiring a payment of US$3,899.

The results of the numerous benchmarks can be seen in the screenshots posted below, with Miani’s entertaining video also embedded beneath this article. The heavier M1 Max machine, which has a slightly higher weight because of its larger SoC heatsink, unsurprisingly proves to be a monster in graphics and GPU benchmarks, such as Geekbench compute and the various GFXBench tests. In the real-world Shadow of the Tomb Raider game test, the M1 Max MacBook Pro 16 pulls off nearly 100 FPS while operating via Rosetta. It’s far ahead of the M1 Pro and also beats out other comparison devices, such as the 18-core iMac Pro and the 2020 iMac i7. With twice the GPU cores, it’s expected that the M1 Max would overpower the M1 Pro in these particular benchmarks.

However, in video-editing benchmarks such as Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve, only a few seconds separates the M1 Pro device with the M1 Max laptop in file exporting and rendering. Additionally, in the Blender BMW GPU bench there is practically nothing between the two MacBooks, so as Miani points out, while the M1 Max MacBook Pro 16 would appeal to those who are involved in constant graphics-intensive tasks or for those who want to play games, the much-cheaper M1 Pro machine would likely be sufficient to cover the majority of use cases. The host then proceeds to cover the 10-core CPU part that is found in both variants of the 2021 Apple Silicon.

Obviously the M1 Pro and M1 Max generally match in the CPU benchmarks, which include runs through Cinebench R23 and Geekbench 5. The new MacBook Pro 16 machines fall behind the 18-core iMac Pro in Cinebench R23 multi thanks to the eight extra cores the Intel Xeon W-2191B processor brings with it, but when it comes to Cinebench R23 single the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips are way ahead of the much-older iMac Pro and at the same level as the M1 MacBook Pro, demonstrating the benefits of the newer M1 Firestorm and Icestorm microarchitecture. The overall results indicate that most Apple fans would clearly be better served by the less expensive MacBook Pro 16 with M1 Pro SoC thanks to its seemingly superior price-performance ratio.

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