Apple M3 Ultra vs Apple M4 Max — Specs & Performance Compared

Verdict: The Apple M3 Ultra leads on 6 of 9 shared benchmarks (68% in Cinebench R23 multi); the Apple M4 Max takes 3 (10% in Cinebench R23 single). On llama3.1:70b, the Apple M4 Max generates 12.5 tokens/s (per Markaicode) against 11.0 for the Apple M3 Ultra (per Kunal Ganglani LLM Benchmarks), best community run on file for each.

Side-by-side CPU comparison of the Apple M3 Ultra and the Apple M4 Max. Released 2025 (Apple M3 Ultra), 2024 (Apple M4 Max). Specs, synthetic benchmarks, AI inference tok/s, and Amazon availability below; each column header links to that part's benchmark page.

Apple · M3

Apple M3 Ultra

2025

Full Apple M3 Ultra benchmarks →

Apple · M4

Apple M4 Max

2024

Full Apple M4 Max benchmarks →

*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Price and availability subject to change.

Where to buy

A listing for each part; the current price and stock are on the retailer's page.

Synthetic benchmarks

Each row says whether a higher or a lower number is better (ranks and times are lower-is-better). Scores come from NanoReview, Notebookcheck, GadgetVersus, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Geekbench Browser, Tom's Hardware, GSMArena and Hostbor; each row links its sources, and where they differ the cell shows their median. Empty cells mean we don't yet have that benchmark on file for the SKU.

Benchmark	Apple M3 Ultra	Apple M4 Max
Blender CPU (higher is better) Source: NanoReview	—	475 points
Cinebench 2024 multi (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck	3,000 points	—
Cinebench 2024 Multi-Core (higher is better) Source: NanoReview, Notebookcheck	3,000 points	2,044 points
Cinebench 2024 Single-Core (higher is better) Source: NanoReview	—	187 points
Cinebench R23 multi (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck, GadgetVersus, AppleInsider	46,243 points	27,595 points
Cinebench R23 Multi-Core (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck	—	27,595 points
Cinebench R23 single (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck, GadgetVersus, AppleInsider	2,011 points	2,209 points
Cinebench R23 Single-Core (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck	—	2,209 points
Geekbench 6 Metal (GPU) (higher is better) Source: MacRumors	259,668 points	—
Geekbench 6 multi (higher is better) Source: Notebookcheck, Geekbench Browser, AppleInsider, MacRumors	27,749 points	25,760 points
Geekbench 6 Multi-Core (higher is better) Source: Tom's Hardware, Geekbench Browser, GSMArena, Hostbor	27,759 points	26,675 points
Geekbench 6 Multi-Core (avg) (higher is better) Source: Geekbench Browser	—	25,724 points

AI inference (tokens/sec)

Top community-reported tokens-per-second results for popular LLMs whose weights fit the card's memory, each linked to its source. See the per-SKU benchmark page for the full set including quantization and prompt length.

Apple M3 Ultra

llama3.1:8b: 128.2 tok/s (Creative Strategies)
gpt-oss-20b: 115.5 tok/s (llama.cpp GitHub (ggml-org guide: running gpt-oss with llama.cpp))
deepseekr1:32b: 100.0 tok/s (LocalLLaMA)

All Apple M3 Ultra AI benchmarks →

Apple M4 Max

llama3.1:8b: 1000.0 tok/s (llama.cpp GitHub Discussions)
qwen3.5:35b-a3b: 130.2 tok/s (markaicode.com)
llama2:7b: 83.1 tok/s (llama.cpp GitHub)

All Apple M4 Max AI benchmarks →

Quick answers

Which is faster, the Apple M3 Ultra or the Apple M4 Max?

The Apple M3 Ultra leads on 6 of 9 shared benchmarks (68% in Cinebench R23 multi); the Apple M4 Max takes 3 (10% in Cinebench R23 single).

Which is better for running local LLMs?

On llama3.1:70b, the Apple M4 Max generates 12.5 tokens/s (per Markaicode) against 11.0 for the Apple M3 Ultra (per Kunal Ganglani LLM Benchmarks), best community run on file for each.