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Home Tech Computing Processors

Apple M1 Ultra chip blows away the competition

Apple's new M1 Ultra chip is powerful and changing the game in the processor market.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer on March 9, 2022

So, Apple has unveiled its new M1 Ultra chip, a chip that takes the power of an M1 Max chip, and then added another M1 Max chip for good measure.

And it is powerful. Really powerful.

Apple

So powerful that it's actually hard to comprehend just how much performance Apple is getting out of its M1 line of chips.

The M1 Ultra takes two M1 Max chips and connects them using what Apple calls UltraFusion architecture.

OK, let's begin with the specs:

5-nanometer process
20 CPU cores (16 high-performance cores, 4 high-efficiency cores)
Up to 64 GPU cores
114 billion transistors
Up to 128GB of unified memory
800 GB/s memory bandwidth
2.5TB/s interprocessor bandwidth
32 core neural engine capable of 22 trillion operations per second
Built-in Secure Enclave

OK, so those are the specs, but what does this mean? Well, in the absence of a hands-on with the hardware, we have to rely on the information that Apple made available.

The M1 Ultra is 90% faster than Intel's Core i9-12900K.

The M1 Ultra is not just powerful, but also a lot more efficient, using 100W less power than the Intel Core i9-12900K chip.

It's not just CPU power that the M1 Ultra has. Its GPU performance is comparable to the highest-end discrete GPU (GeForce GTX 3090) but consumes 200W less power.

Comparing chip to chip is one thing, but it's more interesting to compare system to system, and here Apple is pitting the new M1 Ultra powered Mac Studio against a 16-core Xeon Mac Pro, and the Mac Studio comes in at 90% faster.

Yes, 90% faster.