Apple M4 Max Crushes Single-Core Geekbench Test Scoring Over 4,000

As of right now, the M4 Max is the fastest slice of silicon that Apple has ever designed, and that will remain the case until the inevitable M4 Ultra shows up to the Apple Silicon party. Not only is the M4 Max the fastest chip in Apple's stable, it also posted the highest single-core test on Geekbench, at least if comparing against Geekbench's own chart of single-core scores.

As spotted by Vadim Yuryev (@VadimYuryev), co-host and writer for the Max Tech YouTube channel, there's a new Geekbench listing showing the M4 Max scoring over 4,000 in Geekbench 6.3's single-core test.

"The M4 Max chip benchmarks have leaked and it's the FIRST production chip in the WORLD to break the 4,000 single-core score barrier in Geekbench 6!," Yuryev exclaims on X/Twitter.

Indeed, the listing shows the M4 Max scoring 4,060 in the single-core test, and that is mightily impressive. It also comes with some caveats, the first of which is that this is a leaked score. Related, the Geekbench entry indicates the M4 Max was running at 4.5GHz. Assuming that's accurate, then either Apple goosed the clock speed on the Max variant (and possible the Pro variant as well), or the person who achieved the impressive benchmark result did.

It's also worth pointing out that there are entries showing single-core scores above 4,000, though those are mostly overclocked silicon. However, it's within the realm of possibility that the M4 Max entry is an overclocked result as well, given that someone topped 4,000 with an iPad Pro that was overclocked and cooled with liquid nitrogen (LN2).

That's probably not the case here, but it bears mentioning all the same. Assuming it's not overclocked, the above chart shows how it compares to Geekbench's curated scores, which "reflect the average performance of each processor...with at least five unique results in the Geekbench Browser."

Whatever the case, the M4 Max is certainly a stout chip with a 16-core CPU (up to 12 performance cores and up to 4 efficiency cores), up to 40 GPU cores, and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth, along with a powerful onboard NPU.

"Apple silicon has taken the Mac to unprecedented heights, and the rapid pace of innovation continues with M4 Pro and M4 Max," said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies, when announcing the new M4 silicon. "With the world’s fastest CPU core, immensely more powerful GPUs, and the fastest Neural Engine ever, the power-efficient performance and capabilities of the M4 family extend its lead as the most advanced lineup of chips in the industry."

Apple debuted the M4 Max alongside a revamped MacBook Pro lineup, which notable doubles the base amount of RAM from 8GB to 16GB (finally!). It will be interesting to see how these laptops fare against the competition, especially in light of this early Geekbench entry.