GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q vs Apple M1 8-Core GPU

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking353not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Architectureno dataAmpere (2020−2024)
GPU code nameno dataGA106
Market segmentLaptopLaptop
Release date10 November 2020 (3 years ago)12 January 2021 (3 years ago)

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores83840
Core clock speed1278 MHz817 MHz
Boost clock speedno data1282 MHz
Number of transistorsno data13,250 million
Manufacturing process technology5 nm8 nm
Power consumption (TDP)no data60 Watt
Texture fill rateno data153.8
Floating-point processing powerno data9.846 TFLOPS
ROPsno data48
TMUsno data120
Tensor Coresno data120
Ray Tracing Coresno data30

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Laptop sizeno datalarge
Interfaceno dataPCIe 4.0 x16
Supplementary power connectorsno dataNone

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeno dataGDDR6
Maximum RAM amountno data6 GB
Memory bus widthno data192 Bit
Memory clock speedno data1500 MHz
Memory bandwidthno data288.0 GB/s
Shared memory+-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectorsno dataNo outputs

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectXno data12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Modelno data6.5
OpenGLno data4.6
OpenCLno data2.0
Vulkan-1.2
CUDA-8.6

Pros & cons summary


Recency 10 November 2020 12 January 2021
Chip lithography 5 nm 8 nm

Apple M1 8-Core GPU has a 60% more advanced lithography process.

RTX 3060 Max-Q, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 months.

We couldn't decide between Apple M1 8-Core GPU and GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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Apple M1 8-Core GPU
M1 8-Core GPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q
GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q

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Community ratings

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4 907 votes

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