First Apple ‘M2 Max’ Benchmarks Surface Online

Geekbench scores allegedly belonging to Apple’s upcoming “M2 Max” chip were recently spotted and shared online by known Apple tipster ShrimpApplePro (@VNchocoTaco), giving us a hint at the kind of performance we can expect from the next iteration of Apple Silicon (via MacRumors).

Apple is expected to release a pair of higher-end M2 chips in the coming months. If the company keeps to the same naming and release patterns as the M1 lineup, these chips will be called the “M2 Pro” and “M2 Max,” with a potential “M2 Ultra” chip coming further down the line.

M2 Pro and M2 Max will reportedly come packaged in new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, and possibly a refreshed Mac mini, in early 2023.

The M2 Max chip posted a single-core score of 1,853 and a multi-core score of 13,855 in the recent benchmarks. In comparison, the M1 Max chip in the Mac Studio boasts scores of 1,755 in single-core and 12,333 in multi-core.

Image: @VNchocoTaco on Twitter

These results represent a rather modest improvement of just 5.5% in single-core performance. That said, the first M2 Max-powered Macs aren’t expected until Spring 2023, so even if these benchmarks are authentic, they may not represent the performance of the final product since Apple is still working on the chip.

According to the results, the configuration that was tested featured an M2 Max chip with 12 CPU cores clocked at a base frequency of 3.54 GHz, 9.5% higher than the M1 Max’s 3.23 GHz clock speed.

Image: @VNchocoTaco on Twitter

The Mac, labelled only as “Mac 14,6” was running on macOS 13.2, which notably hasn’t even entered developer or public beta and is currently only being tested internally at Apple. What’s more, the configuration was equipped with 96GB of memory. A report from last month indicated that the M2 Pro and M2 Max will have very high-bandwidth memory.

Apple is reportedly also readying an M2 Mac Pro for release next year. The company is yet to give its highest-end Mac the Apple Silicon treatment, but Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said last month that a Mac Pro with some incarnation of the M2 chip is currently being tested internally.

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