The most recent performance tests for Apple’s M3 CPUs have been released, and the M3 Pro, in particular, has claimed the top spot in PassMark’s single-thread benchmark.
Last month, the Intel Core i9-14900K CPU held the title of the fastest single-threaded chip in the PassMark benchmark upon its debut. However, it didn’t take long for Apple’s M3 CPU family to dethrone it as the new leader in single-thread performance. The benchmark database now contains performance scores for all three M3 SKUs, which are the M3 8-Core, M3 Pro 11-Core, and M3 Max 16-Core.
In terms of performance results, the M3 Pro 11-core leads the pack with a score of 4910 points. It is followed by the M3 Pro 12-core, which achieves a score of 4,841 points, and finally, the M3 8-core, which scores 4784 points. Notably, the Apple M3 Pro 11-Core outperforms the Intel Core i9-14900K CPU by 1%, while the other two chips achieve similar single-core scores.
During the official announcements, Apple emphasized the significant single-threaded performance of its M3 class chips, which indeed show great potential in this regard. However, when it comes to multi-threaded performance, the Core i9-14900K outperforms the 16-core M3 Max by a substantial 34% in performance, and it maintains a commanding 56% lead over the 12-Core M3 Pro.
When it comes to multi-core performance, the 12/11-core M3 and M2 chips exhibit nearly identical performance, while the 8-core variant stands out with a 24% performance increase, thanks to its higher clock speeds.
Previous benchmarks indicated that the increase in IPC from M2 to M3 chips was minimal. Therefore, the additional core counts on the M3 Max and the upcoming Ultra chips will play a significant role in pushing performance to higher levels. As a result, it appears that x86 CPUs still maintain a substantial advantage over the latest Apple M3 chips. Intel and AMD are also gearing up to release new processors, adding further competition to Apple’s CPU development. Additionally, there are reports of NVIDIA and AMD entering the Arm architecture space in the coming years, posing a potential major threat to both Intel and Apple if these companies achieve success in that endeavor.