Alleged M4 benchmarks verify Apple’s iPad Pro performance claims

Apple’s new iPad Pros run the M4 processor

Apple’s M4 processor won’t be available in the wild until devices arrive in customers hands on May 15. But, that may not have stopped some reviewers with pre-release units from performing benchmarks with Geekbench.

A device called iPad16,6, which appears to be the latest iPad Pro with M4 with 10 cores shows a 3,767 single core and 14,677 multi core score. For context, that’s almost an exact 1.5x CPU performance boost from a 12.9-inch iPad Pro with M2, which scored 2,590 single core and 10,019 multi core.

Geekbench scores for the iPad16,6

Another benchmark for iPad16,6 showed up with a 53,792 metal score for the GPU. That’s a more modest improvement from the M2 iPad Pro scoring 46,575.

The new benchmarks arrived a few hours after an ML score for the M4’s Neural Engine was discovered with a 9,234. It beat out the M3’s Neural Engine, but not the M3 Max.

The Neural Engine test is suspect because it shows iOS 18, which hasn’t leaked. The other new benchmarks all show iOS 17.5, which is in beta.

The data is fresh and unverifiable at this time, but it appears to indicate Apple’s claims made during the “Let Loose” announcement are accurate. The baseline M-series processor makes small gains with each generation, but the more important upgrades aren’t tested by Geekbench.

Real world gains will be easier to determine when users are able to compare workflows like exporting a file or running a game. Benchmark tools provide a decent baseline for comparison, but are not meant to be definitive.

More tests will have to be run once the M4 iPad Pro models launch in a week. Expect early reviews to touch on workflows and benchmarks as well.