Ultimate Edition On Battery; NVIDIA’s Top-End Mobile GPU Is 43.7 Percent Faster

The laptop version of the RTX 5090 is currently the fastest mobile graphics processor on the market right now, whereas Apple’s M4 Max is marketed to feature the fastest internal GPU that can be found in a portable computer. With Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition natively available for both Windows and macOS, we look closer at which silicon comes out on top in various categories. Interestingly enough, the M4 Max is touted as sporting unrivaled efficiency, but in the latest gaming test, the ‘performance per watt’ metric is beyond negligible, as you will soon find out.

Two laptops were tested on battery power, with the M4 Max only churning out 10FPS in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition with all the visual settings maxed out, but without any upscaling

It should be pointed out that the M4 Max was previously demoed to have obtained 120FPS in Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, but we later provided an in-depth take on that framerate, concluding that this level of performance would not have been possible without upscaling and interpolation, also known as Frame Generation. The 40-core GPU version of the Apple Silicon was running in the MacBook Pro, with Max Weinbach comparing it against the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop sporting NVIDIA’s RTX 5090.

Ideally, we will never recommend anyone to play any game on battery power, and a title as graphically intensive as Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will need all the power it can get, but the recent test reveals the ‘performance per watt’ attributes of both machines, which is an interesting addition to gauge the capabilities of the two chips. With everything maxed out, including path tracing, and no upscaling and Frame Generation to boost that framerate, the M4 Max only achieved an average FPS of 10.72. At the same time, the laptop version of the RTX 5090 was 43.7 percent faster with an average framerate of 15.41.

Comparing the ‘performance per watt’ of both chips, the M4 Max ended with 0.21, with the RTX 5090 finishing at 0.22. When mentioning the power limit, the M4 Max averaged 52W, while the RTX 5090 was at 70W. Bear in mind that the maximum supported power limit of NVIDIA’s top-end laptop GPU is 175W, so there is no question that this graphics processor will obliterate Apple’s M4 Max in pure rasterization and path tracing tests. Then again, when only discussing power efficiency, the MacBook Pro would win by a landslide if the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop was plugged in.

We should also mention that only the RTX 5090’s average power limit has been noted in the Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition test, and if we were to add the CPU’s consumption to that total, the M4 Max would be seen as the more promising silicon. Then again, these results were not the best considering the average framerate, but we want to remind readers that it was not the purpose of this test.

News Source: Max Weinbach