The final member of the M2 series Apple Silicon, the M2 Ultra chip, was revealed at the 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event. Designed to power the 2023 Mac Studio and Mac Pro, the M2 Ultra boasts a superior CPU and GPU, promising improved performance.
But how does it fare against the preceding M1 Ultra?
As the Mac Studio remains the sole device to feature both Ultra variants, we will compare the benchmark scores of the M2 Ultra and M1 Ultra-equipped Mac Studios to determine the performance winner.
The 2023 Mac Studio maintains its predecessor’s design language and a premium price tag of $3,999. Since its inception, the M1 Ultra Mac Studio has seen price drops at third-party retailers, now available for as low as $3,199 on Amazon.
M2 Ultra vs M1 Ultra | Specs comparison
| Specs | M2 Ultra | M1 Ultra |
| Manufacturing process |
5nm | 5nm |
| CPU | 24-core CPU (16 high-performance cores @3.50 GHz and 8 high-efficiency cores @2.80 GHz) |
20-core CPU (16 high-performance cores @3.20 GHz and 4 high-efficiency cores @2.06 GHz) |
| GPU | Up to 76-core GPU @1.40 GHz | Up to 64-core GPU @1.30 GHz |
| Transistors | 134 billion | 114 billion |
| Memory capacity | 192GB | 128GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 800GB/s | 800GB/s |
| Memory type | LPDDR5-6400 | LPDDR5-6400 |
| Neural Engine | 32-core runs 31.6 trillion operations per second |
32-core runs Up to 22 trillion operations per second |
| Low latency | Over 2.5TB/s of low-latency inter-processor bandwidth | 2.5TB/s of low-latency inter-processor bandwidth |
For those contemplating a new Mac purchase or considering an upgrade from an older desktop, we have drawn a comparison between the M2 Ultra and M1 Ultra benchmarks to assist you in your decision-making process.
M2 Ultra vs M1 Ultra | Benchmarks
Apple said that the M2 Ultra is 20% faster than the M1 Ultra chip. Let’s have a look at some popular benchmarks to see their performance.
| Benchmarks | M2 Ultra | M1 Ultra |
| Geekbench 6 | Single core: 2,837 Multi-core: 21,730 |
Single-core: 2,381 Multi-core: 17,664 |
| Geekbench 5 | Single-core: 1,940 Multi-core: 27,860 |
Single-core: 1,793 Multi-core: 24,055 |
| Cinebench R23 | Single-core: 1,695 Multi-core: 28,570 |
Single-core: 1,534 Multi-core: 24,189 |
| Blender 3.1 | N/A | 379 |
Upon evaluation, it is clear that the M2 Ultra indeed surpasses the M1 Ultra, although not uniformly by 20% across all metrics. Depending on the benchmark, the performance difference varies, ranging from a low of 16% to a peak of 20%.