After unveiling its newMacBook Pro equipped with M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, it was time to passthese chips under the watchful eye of Blender. The latter is an incredibly powerful free and open-source software that also has an official benchmark tool, Blender Open Data.
Andthe first CPU benchmarks had already aroused enthusiasm, the graphics performance of the M4 in Max version confirms this supremacy. He's a real brute,capable of competing with high-end graphics cardsdesigned for desktop computers.
Raw power
The tests carried out place the M4 Max in a more than enviable position compared to other GPUs.With an average score of 5,208 on 28 tests, the chip is positioned just below the NVIDIA RTX 4080 portable version (12 GB of VRAM, 5,312 score) and outperforms the desktop RTX 3080 Ti as well (16 GB of VRAM, 5,185 score) as well as the RTX 4070 (12 GB of VRAM, too and 5,125 score).
Performance all the more remarkable than Apple's solutionintegrates all its components on a single chip, unlike dedicated graphics cards which require considerable space in a PC. For example, an ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 4070 is a good thirty cm long and weighs around 1.8 kg.
It has plenty of room, the little M4 Max compared to its big competitors. © Blender Open Data
Despite these impressive results, the M4 Max still shows qsome limitations with certain GPUs. The RTX 4090 for laptop still maintains a good lead with a score of 6,863, or around 30% more performance.
However, Apple has more than one ace up its sleeve, including one and not the least:energy consumption. All the graphics cards mentioned in this article are real energy sinks when compared to the M4. The 4080 in portable version can consume up to 150 W of power. In the office version, it can approach 300 W; This nevertheless remains relatively economical for GPUs of this type, but it is still far superior to the M4 Max which is satisfied with only a few tens of watts.No doubt, she is indeed the queen of compromise.
- Apple's M4 Max chip rivals high-end graphics cards like the portable RTX 4080 and even outperforms the RTX 3080 Ti.
- Despite performance slightly below the RTX 4090, the M4 Max impresses with its compactness and its integration on a single chip.
- With minimalist energy consumption, the M4 Max stands out as a true model of efficiency.
