Blender benchmark highlights how powerful the M4 Max’s graphics truly are

Apple released its new MacBook Pros with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chipsets last week – and early CPU benchmarks (via Geekbench) painted a very promising picture for Apple’s highest end M4 Max chipset. Now we’re taking a look at some GPU benchmarks, and the M4 Max continues to hold quite strong.

These GPU benchmark scores come from Blender Open Data, a test where users can benchmark Blender performance on their device, both in CPU and GPU. Unlike synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench, the Blender benchmark can provide an idea of real world performance, if this suits your workflow.

M4 Max vs comparable Nvidia offerings

According to Blender Open Data, the M4 Max averaged a score of 5208 across 28 tests, putting it just below the laptop version of Nvidia’s RTX 4080, and just above the last generation desktop RTX 3080 Ti, as well as the current generation desktop RTX 4070.

That’s quite impressive, considering Apple’s graphics are entirely on-chip, unlike the discrete RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 4070, which occupy significant space inside a desktop PC.

M4 Max vs best Nvidia offerings

That being said, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. If you compare it to the highest end comparable Nvidia offering, the RTX 4090 Laptop – it’s still a fair bit behind. The laptop 4090 scores 6863 on average, making it around 30% faster than the highest end M4 Max.

Obviously, there’s the efficiency argument – Apple’s M4 Max uses far less power than anything in the high end Windows laptop space. However, for those looking to maximize performance on the go, at all costs, M4 Max is not the best way to go, though it does still perform impressively given its efficiency.

Wrap up

One interesting highlight is that the desktop RTX 4090 averages a score of 10880. Hypothetically, an M4 Ultra chip that doubled up on the M4 Max could beat that score, which would make the next generation Mac Studio a lot more interesting.

What do you think of the latest Apple Silicon? Let us know in the comments.

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