With the arrival of the new M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, Apple has made a serious leap forward in performance. But it is above all the M4 Ultra chip that is arousing excitement among gamers, with the promise of even outperforming Nvidia's formidable RTX 4090 in certain cases.
Recent benchmarks of the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips have already shown that Apple is capable of competing with the best Intel and AMD processors. But it is on the graphics level that the future M4 Ultra could really make an impression.
According to estimates, this power monster could display “Geekbench 6 compute” benchmark scores exceeding 330,000 points. A mind-blowing figure, which would place the chip well beyond the performance of the RTX 4090currently the benchmark on the market. And that's not all. Leaks even raise the possibility of the M4 Ultra reaching up to 385,624 points, an overwhelming dominance over Nvidia's high-end graphics card.
A lead in video games for the M4 Ultra chip?
But raw performance is only part of the story. What really matters is the actual gaming experience. And there, the first tests are simply breathtaking. Benchmarks carried out in China by Geekerwan showed that on Baldur's Gate 3, the MacBook Pro equipped with the M4 Max displayed 105 FPS at 1080p. A result 62% higher than that of a Windows laptop PC combining an Intel Core Ultra 185H processor and an RTX 4070, which topped out at 65 FPS on the same game.
This difference in performance is simply mind-boggling. It shows to what extent the M4 Max, and even more so the future M4 Ultra, are able to transform the MacBook Pro into a real racing beast for gaming.
Certainly, the catalog of native games on macOS still remains limited compared to Windows. But with such impressive raw performance, there is no doubt that developers will be increasingly tempted to optimize their titles for the Apple platform.
The arrival of the M4 Ultra could therefore mark a real turning point for gaming on Mac. With a chip capable of rivaling, if not dominating, the best PC graphics cards, the MacBook Pro suddenly becomes an extremely attractive option for gamers looking for a powerful and mobile machine.
