Tests show Apple M5 Max smoking AMD and setting performance record

The first unofficial Geekbench 6 results for the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max are in, and Apple isn’t just winning the benchmark race. It’s obliterating the competition.

The M5 Max’s 18-core CPU scored 29,233 in multi-core performance, beating the Mac Studio’s M3 Ultra chip with a 32-core CPU and an average score of 27,726. Yes, you read that right. A chip with 18 cores just outperformed one with 32. That’s a roughly 5% lead over the M3 Ultra and up to 15% faster than last year’s M4 Max.

It doesn’t stop there. In single-core performance, the M5 Max scored 4,268, the highest single-core result of any consumer PC processor ever tested on Geekbench, including AMD’s Ryzen 9 series. Apple had claimed its super cores are the world’s fastest CPU cores, and the benchmarks appear to back that up.

What makes the M5 Max so fast?

Apple built the M5 Max on a new Fusion Architecture that connects two dies into a single chip, bringing together a powerful CPU, scalable GPU, and higher unified memory bandwidth. 

The 18-core CPU is split between six super cores optimized for maximum speed and 12 new performance cores built for efficient multithreaded work. The M5 Max also supports up to 128GB of unified memory with bandwidth up to 614GB/s. This new Fusion architecture has allowed Apple to push performance further than before, delivering impressive results with its M5 Max chips.

What about the GPU?

The GPU results are a little more nuanced. The M5 Max’s 40-core GPU scored 218,772 and 232,718 in two different Metal tests, about 5% to 10% behind the M3 Ultra’s average of 245,053, but over 20% ahead of MacBook Pro powered by an M4 Max.

That said, we cannot compare it to Nvidia’s or AMD’s GPUs, as the comparative test results are not out yet. Also, GPU performance varies widely, depending on the program you use or the games you play. So, we cannot comment on how the M4 Max’s GPU will perform until it starts shipping. 

That said, the Nvidia RTX 5090 consistently scored nearly twice as high as the M3 Ultra GPU in tests like Geekbench 6 OpenCL and 3DMark, so expect the M5 Max to perform in a similar range.

Overall, the M5 Max delivers up to 15% faster CPU and 20% faster GPU performance compared to the M4 Max. If you’ve been on the fence about upgrading your MacBook Pro, these numbers might just make the decision for you. Pre-orders are live, with availability starting March 11.