Home > CPU Comparison > M2 Ultra or M1 Max: what's better?

Apple M2 Ultra vs M1 Max

79 out of 100
Apple M2 Ultra
VS
61 out of 100
Apple M1 Max
Apple M2 Ultra
Apple M1 Max

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 Ultra with 24-cores against the 3.2 GHz M1 Max with 10-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
DeviceFacts Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
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Key Differences

What are the key differences between Max and Ultra
Advantages of Apple M2 Ultra
  • Supports up to 192 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • Has 14 more physical cores
  • Around 409.6 GB/s (100%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Newer - released 1 year and 7 months later
  • 10% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2685 vs 2431 points

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
M2 Ultra
vs
M1 Max

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
M2 Ultra +13%
125
M1 Max
111
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
M2 Ultra +146%
1941
M1 Max
789
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 7481 -
Cinebench Scores (#31st place)
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
M2 Ultra +10%
2685
M1 Max
2431
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
M2 Ultra +69%
21387
M1 Max
12673
File compression 2140 MB/sec 1450 MB/sec
Clang compilation 226.4 Klines/sec 105.1 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 569.8 pages/sec 329.2 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 603.6 Mpixels/sec 317 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 272.4 pages/sec 249.6 pages/sec
Background blur 56.5 images/sec 42.2 images/sec
Photo processing 170.7 images/sec 122.8 images/sec
Ray tracing 33.8 Mpixels/sec 14.9 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 728 & 447 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
M2 Ultra +10%
4208
M1 Max
3831
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
M2 Ultra +130%
50945
M1 Max
22162
Integer math 117.4 GOps/sec 46.1 GOps/sec
Floating point math 148.9 GOps/sec 64.5 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 712M Primes/sec 278M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 83.7M Strings/sec 32.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 32 GBytes/sec 12.2 GBytes/sec
Data compression 682.7 MBytes/sec 274.4 MBytes/sec
Physics 7650 Frames/sec 2833 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 33.2B Matrices/sec 12.8B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 201 & 2398 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
M2 Ultra +152%
501.6
M1 Max
199.2

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 24.3 PPW 15.8 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 267.3 PPW 253.5 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 636.8 PPW 443.2 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.27 PPW 3.98 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple M2 Ultra
No benchmark results yet
Add
Apple M1 Max
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2025-07-04 (Daniel)Geekbench 6 CPU2459 / 13052
Add View all (1)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M2 Ultra and M1 Max

General

Vendor Apple Apple
Released May 5, 2023 October 18, 2021
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set ARMv8 ARMv8
Codename Apple M2 Apple M1
Integrated GPU Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) Apple M1 Max GPU (32-core)
Successor - Apple M4 Ultra - Apple M5 Max (40-сore GPU)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 16 8
P-Threads 16 8
Base Frequency (P) 3.5 GHz 3.2 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 8 2
E-Threads 8 2
Base Frequency (E) 2.4 GHz 2.1 GHz
Total
Total Cores 24 10
Total Threads 24 10
Multiplier 35x -
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 64MB (shared) 24MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 134 billions 57 billions
Fabrication Process 5 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 80 W 50 W
Socket Apple M-Socket Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100°C -
Laptop processors ranking (24th and 93rd place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M2 Ultra GPU (76-core) Apple M1 Max GPU (32-core)
GPU Base Clock - 450 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1398 MHz 1296 MHz
Shading Units - 4096
TMUs - 256
ROPs - 128
Execution Units - 512
iGPU FLOPS
M2 Ultra
n/a
M1 Max
10.6 TFLOPS
See: Apple M1 Max GPU (32-core) benchmarks

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-6400 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 192 GB 64 GB
Memory Channels 8 4
Max. Memory Bandwidth 819.2 GB/s 409.6 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

PCI Express Version 4.0 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
10 (76.9%)
3 (23.1%)
Total votes: 13

Competitors

1. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M4 Pro (12-Core)
2. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M2 Pro
3. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (13)
4. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M4 Max (14-Core)
5. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M2 Max (1)
6. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M3 (4)
7. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 Ultra (2)
8. Apple M2 Ultra vs Intel Core i9 14900K
9. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M3 Ultra
10. Apple M2 Ultra vs Apple M4 (10-Core)
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M1 Max or M2 Ultra?
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