One iPad mad scientist has managed to beat an M4 iPad Pro testing score by popping it in the freezer. Though we wouldn’t recommend trying this at home, it shows how powerful Apple’s latest chip is.
Over on Reddit, one user of the r/iPadPro subreddit put their brand new 13-inch M4 iPad Pro in the freezer for 10 minutes before running Geekbench 6, a benchmarking program that tells you how powerful your hardware is. In single core performance, it managed to get 4004, which is 3 points above the user who froze their iPad Pro with liquid nitrogen just a few weeks ago. Without either of these freezing methods, the M4 iPad Pro tends to get around 3700 in its single-core tests — still a mighty figure. The max multicore score of 13603 scored by the Reddit user is marginally above the aggregated average of 13405 it tends to test normally.
As pointed out in the original users’ thread, this is almost 300 points above a 14th gen Intel i9 14900k desktop chip, which fetches over $500 by itself. The original Reddit poster goes on to say “Apple actually did some serious work on these M Series chips man.”
What is all this power for?
Though it’s good to have a quicker export time on files or better performance in games, the M4 chip seems like more of a future-proofing plan than anything else right now. With iOS 18 later this year, Apple Intelligence will finally be launching on the platform and on-device AI use will also benefit Apple’s current line of iPads.
Part of the reason why iPad Pros are performing so well when subjected to cold spaces is because of how efficiently designed they are. Apple devices can stay relatively cool and silent even without fans and this is because of how smart the design is. With a beefy chip like this, it might be able to handle one of the most notable downsides of AI devices, the heat that comes from its use. It seems that, with its current lineup of chips, Apple is poised for a huge year ahead and the M4 chip will be at the forefront.
