Apple's M4 Max beats RTX 4070 in Blender, but falls short of the RTX 4080 Super

[DragonSlayer101]

What just happened? Apple launched its refreshed MacBook Pro in early November, and initial benchmarks revealed that the M4 Max outperforms both the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X in Geekbench 6. Now, new tests are hinting that the chip's integrated GPU may also surpass the performance of Nvidia's RTX 4070 desktop graphics card.

The impressive test results come from Blender Open Data, where the M4 Max scored an average of 5,205 points across 38 tests. This places it just below the laptop version of the RTX 4080, which achieved 5,326 points, but well ahead of the RTX 3080 Ti and the desktop RTX 4070. The RTX 3080 Ti scored 5,193 points, while the RTX 4070 managed only 5,128 points.

Additional evidence of the M4 Max's power comes from YouTuber and Blender expert Robbie Tilton, who tested the M4 chips alongside various Nvidia graphics cards in Blender to evaluate their performance. In his rendering tests, the M4 Max MacBook Pro outperformed the Nvidia RTX 3080 but narrowly trailed the RTX 4080 Super in rendering times.

The tests highlight the raw power of Apple's new M4 chips, but what's truly remarkable is how these compact SoCs with integrated graphics can go toe-to-toe with – and in some cases outperform – large discrete desktop graphics cards.

The M4 chips also consume significantly less power than Nvidia's offerings, making their achievements even more impressive. While the RTX 4080 Super can draw up to 320W, the M4 Max is believed to use only a fraction of that amount, as the M4 Pro has a reported maximum power consumption of around 46W.

However, the impressive performance of the M4 Max doesn't necessarily reflect the capabilities of the entire M4 family. In Tilton's tests, the base M4 chip performed considerably slower than its high-end sibling, taking nearly four times longer to render various scenes.

For context, the RTX 4090 remains the undisputed leader in the Blender Open Data benchmark, scoring an astonishing 10,880 points. While Apple's current chips aren't yet in the same league, it will be interesting to see if the rumored M4 Ultra has what it takes to challenge Nvidia's flagship.

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Apple's M4 Max beats RTX 4070 in Blender, but falls short of the RTX 4080 Super

 

[BobDolesGhost]

Wonder if there is any potential for Apple's M series CPU+GPU chips supplanting AMD's Ryzen+RDNA in game consoles in the near future. The compute appears to be there obviously

 

[Eldrach]

Blender..That’s not really a good benchmark if you’re thinking about game performance

 

[Achaios]

I dunno, this sounds too good to be true.

In just a single broad sweep Apple rendered the desktop 4070, 4070 Super obsolete and reached desktop 4080 levels of performance while at the same time consuming 1/4 to 1/5th the power the NVIDIA chips consume?

Nah.

 

[VariableSpike]

I thought Blender was much more so a CPU heavy workload than GPU?

 

[jrtt0]

Their chips are truly impressive in terms of compute performance, both on CPU and GPU side.
It's not about gaming performance, which will need some dedicated benchmarks to state anything. It's about compute performance and it's actually really good.
I don't really like the brand itself but they made damn good chips and so fast...

 

[Lew Zealand]

Blender..That’s not really a good benchmark if you’re thinking about game performance

It's almost like people do video production on Macs and play games on PCs.

 

[HardReset]

Blender benchmark has known bugs with Metal API that Apple uses. In other words, Apple chips get way too good results.

Software bug, end of case.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

They do get decent results even in games, but at cost of visual quality drops, I.e. missing or subpar GI, AA, shadows or post-processing, and of course, absence of RT.

But sometimes it's not the case, especially for AAA titles sold through appstore. Their MetalFX Upscale is good tho too. My 1792CU M1 Pro flew well above 61 fps in Resident Evil 4 at 1080p + Quality upscale, or around 50-60 fps at native+Upscale. Wonder if there's monitoring app for macos that could show fps in 3d app

 

[AnilD]

It's interesting how Apple’s integrated GPU is getting closer to closing the gap with RTX discrete cards, even if this is an optimal result to go even near the 4080... the potential for mobile-first workflows with this kind of power is pretty exciting. For sure this is not representative of gaming workloads, but still impressive.

 

[Eldrach]

It's almost like people do video production on Macs and play games on PCs.

Yeah, that is of course clear - just saying that this test would in no way represent a real use scenario for a 4070, which makes the comparison pretty useless.

 

[bviktor]

I dunno, this sounds too good to be true.

In just a single broad sweep Apple rendered the desktop 4070, 4070 Super obsolete and reached desktop 4080 levels of performance while at the same time consuming 1/4 to 1/5th the power the NVIDIA chips consume?

Nah.

Nope, it's just that the PC masterrace fanboys have been in denial for quite a while now.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Wonder if there is any potential for Apple's M series CPU+GPU chips supplanting AMD's Ryzen+RDNA in game consoles in the near future. The compute appears to be there obviously

er No.

Apple seems to want to keep it's toys to itself.
Not like you can go down and buy an Apple M CPU of the shelf , plus maybe need some special sauce anyway to work at 100% - like Apple will share that

 

[kiwigraeme]

Nope, it's just that the PC masterrace fanboys have been in denial for quite a while now.

yeah nah,
No one disputes Apple makes some fantastic silicon - but they do a the master race a great service, telling Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD, MS etc what's possible and to up their game

Their imacs are useless for us - unless doing video production work and it helps to be in the wooly fold with iPhone etc

You wouldn't buy an imac at those prices for just media consumption or browser
Apple happily shears it's flock in separate pens

Try running imac software no problems , no limitations on a ipad pro with practically the same SOC .
Nah they've lock that Ipad pro down to always get their fleece ( 30% )

We see the new Qualcomm , the new AMD halo strix, Nvidia wants to join the party big time.
These are actually useful , more so now MS is getting serious about ARM

Plus even if Apples to MasterPC - lets see real world AAA latest games ran for hours on end = probably fairly good but no perfect as designed to run video work mostly

Where Apple might shine - is in ipad wars and gaming, but even then Steam Hand holds and now a big rush for newer more powerful machines, displays , that can run nearly everything , except I suppose Apple .
a Sony or Nintendo new console will still win for easy family purchase - No one trusts Apple to supply AAA games into the future , or get developers on board for a niche handhold , which will mainly be Ipad reworkings

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Nope, it's just that the PC masterrace fanboys have been in denial for quite a while now.

That's some grade A delusion right there.

It's almost like people do video production on Macs and play games on PCs.

There's no reason it has to be that way, aside from artificial marketing.

Their chips are truly impressive in terms of compute performance, both on CPU and GPU side.
It's not about gaming performance, which will need some dedicated benchmarks to state anything. It's about compute performance and it's actually really good.
I don't really like the brand itself but they made damn good chips and so fast...

That's great, until you dare to try and walk outside the walled garden. You run an app not specifically optimized for M series chips, or outside the bugged Metal API, suddenly your performance absolutely tanks.

 

[skittlebrau]

I thought Blender was much more so a CPU heavy workload than GPU?

Rendering can use either or even both at the same time depending on the settings you choose. The benchmark mentioned in the article is a GPU benchmark.

Not many do CPU-only rendering since GPU compute is so much faster.

 

[VariableSpike]

Rendering can use either or even both at the same time depending on the settings you choose. The benchmark mentioned in the article is a GPU benchmark.

Not many do CPU-only rendering since GPU compute is so much faster.

Makes sense thank you, just remember Blender cropping up in CPU benchmarks so I was confused as to the nature of the benchmark being ran, but that would make sense

 

[Fanboiism101]

Now, if only they aren't in a closed ecosystem and friendlier towards DIY builder...

 

[Lew Zealand]

There's no reason it has to be that way, aside from artificial marketing.

Yes, either computer has the hardware to do the other job easily and PCs certainly do video production. And Macs can game well when the dev writes a native port.

But unless that game is somehow an easy port there doesn't seem to be the demand from the Mac side (and maybe support from Apple) to finance many top quality ports. Which makes me wonder how many (if any) Mac ported games have sold enough to pay for their porting/development costs.

 

[Rudyduu]

There's no reason it has to be that way, aside from artificial marketing.

Mac's are mostly for casual users, creators, or businesses. Gaming on Mac is a niche within a niche. There aren't enough Mac gamers to make it worth the development costs for an additional platform. What is "non-artificial marketing"? Marketing Apple products to gamers won't create more games on Mac or convince people to spend $4k - $6k on a computer that would game half as good as a PC costing less than half the cost of the latest Studio or "pro" level Mac with the best GPU available and enough storage for 4-5 AAA Modern games.

 

[phinn888]

Why are you not saying that OptiX was disabled in Blender? No one with an RTX card would have this disabled. Also the benchmark is a with a 4 year old CPU from before M chips even came out. Who is taking this benchmark seriously? Shame on you Techspot.

 

[ZedRM]

I'm genuinely impressed by this. But can M4 Max do actual RealTime Raytracing?