New MacBooks sound less appealing after leaked Apple M2 Max Geekbench scores

As an Apple fan and long-time MacBook user, I'm always excited to hear about upgrades coming to the platform. The latest update came in the form of the M2 chipset, which has now graced the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro and even the iPad Pro.

Users have been waiting eagerly for the M2 variant of Apple's premium chips, the "Max" and the "Ultra". The previous M1 version of these chips can be found in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. Some anticipated an update along with the new iPad models in October, but nothing was unveiled.

Now, a leaked Geekbench score appears to show the performance of the M2 Max chip. And it's... underwhelming.

Screenshots were shared on Twitter by popular Apple leaker, ShrimpApplePro. It showcases a 12-core version of the M2 Max chip in a device listed with a staggering 96GB of RAM. That's an obscenely high amount of storage, and would completely dwarf anything currently available, even up to the Mac Studio. 

The device is named "Mac 14,6" on the Geekbench site. There is no confirmation of whether that refers to anything specific, though my gut says that's a screen size – could we, therefore, see a 14.6-inch MacBook Pro? It would certainly explain the uncharacteristic delay in release.

As for the scores themselves, the chip posts a single-core score of 1,853 and a multi-core score of 13,855. That's certainly a boost over the M1 Max, but only a slight one – around 10-15%, depending on which score you believe.

Some commenters were unfazed by this, proclaiming that the real upgrade was going to come in the GPU, rather than the CPU. But come on, this is the internet! Many more were outraged by such a miniscule improvement.

I can see why. I'm certainly not in the camp of expecting every new release to be some dramatic upgrade, nor do I believe that benchmark scores are the last word on defining great tech performance. But Apple has held this model back for a reason. I, and I'm sure many others, had hoped that it was to boost the tech under the hood. But if it's unrelated, and the new models offer little improvement over their predecessors, it's hard to get excited about.

These models are slated for an early 2023 release, so we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for more information soon.