Home > CPU Comparison > Apple M1 or Ryzen 5 3500U: what's better?

Apple M1 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

53 out of 100
Apple M1
VS
27 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
Apple M1
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 3.2 GHz Apple M1 with 8-cores against the 2.1 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with 4-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
Integrated Graphics
iGPU capabilities for gaming and 3D-intensive tasks
NanoReview Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
πŸ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 3500U and M1
Advantages of Apple M1
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 12 nanometers
  • 2.3x faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2410 vs 1044 points
  • More powerful Apple M1 GPU integrated graphics: 2.6 vs 1.2 TFLOPS
  • Has 4 more physical cores
  • Around 32.49 GB/s (91%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Newer - released 1 year and 11 months later
  • Newer PCI Express version – 4.0
Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
  • Supports up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 RAM

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Apple M1
vs
Ryzen 5 3500U

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Apple M1 +150%
110
Ryzen 5 3500U
44
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Apple M1 +252%
525
Ryzen 5 3500U
149
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Apple M1 +131%
2410
Ryzen 5 3500U
1044
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Apple M1 +197%
8547
Ryzen 5 3500U
2880
File compression 941 MB/sec 310.7 MB/sec
Clang compilation 68.2 Klines/sec 19.2 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 192.4 pages/sec 71.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 211.9 Mpixels/sec 92 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 250.8 pages/sec 88.3 pages/sec
Background blur 34.1 images/sec 11.3 images/sec
Photo processing 60.9 images/sec 28 images/sec
Ray tracing 9.74 Mpixels/sec 4.41 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 760 & 774 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Apple M1 +92%
3673
Ryzen 5 3500U
1911
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Apple M1 +107%
14123
Ryzen 5 3500U
6809
Integer math 33.2 GOps/sec 24.5 GOps/sec
Floating point math 35.5 GOps/sec 12.4 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 141M Primes/sec 15M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 21M Strings/sec 10.9M Strings/sec
Data encryption 8.5 GBytes/sec 5.9 GBytes/sec
Data compression 168 MBytes/sec 93.6 MBytes/sec
Physics 1359 Frames/sec 367 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 7B Matrices/sec 3.5B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 10702 & 5693 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Apple M1 +179%
95.27
Ryzen 5 3500U
34.13

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 37.5 PPW 4.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 610.5 PPW 82.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 1008.8 PPW 194.5 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.81 PPW 0.98 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple M1
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-25 -> op1Geekbench 6 CPU2273 / 7967
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-24 -> op1Geekbench 6 CPU2420 / 8793
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-06 (gaR)Geekbench 6 CPU2396 / 8763
πŸ“˜ 2025-04-11 (Ario)Geekbench 6 CPU2395 / 8820
πŸ“˜ 2025-04-11 (Ario)Cinebench 2024110 / 465
Add View all (8)
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2025-02-25 (Kirill_009)Geekbench 6 CPU643 / 1815
Add View all (1)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M1 and AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

General

Vendor Apple Amd
Released November 20, 2020 January 6, 2019
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set ARMv8 x86-64
Codename Apple M1 Zen+ (Picasso)
Integrated GPU Apple M1 GPU Radeon Vega 8
Rival Equivalent - - Intel Core i5 1035G7
Successor - Apple M5 (10-Core) - AMD Ryzen 5 8640U
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#187th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 4
P-Threads 4 8
Base Frequency (P) 3.2 GHz 2.1 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) - 3.7 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 -
E-Threads 4 -
Base Frequency (E) 2.1 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 8 4
Total Threads 8 8
Bus Frequency - 100 MHz
Multiplier - 21x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 96K (per core)
L2 Cache 12MB (shared) 512K (per core)
L3 Cache - 4MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 16 billions 4.9 billions
Fabrication Process 5 nm 12 nm
TDP (PL1) 14 W 12-35 W (configurable)
Socket Apple M-Socket FP5
Peak Temperature - 105Β°C

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M1 GPU Radeon Vega 8
GPU Base Clock 450 MHz 300 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1278 MHz 1200 MHz
Shading Units 1024 512
TMUs 64 32
ROPs 32 8
Execution Units 128 8
TGP 15 W 25 W
iGPU FLOPS
Apple M1 +117%
2.6 TFLOPS
Ryzen 5 3500U
1.2 TFLOPS
More info: Radeon RX Vega 8 compared to Apple M1 GPU (8-core)

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR4X-4266 - DDR4-2400
Max. Memory Size 16 GB 32 GB
Memory Channels 8 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth 68.25 GB/s 35.76 GB/s
ECC Support No Yes

Misc

Official Site - AMD Ryzen 5 3500U official page
PCI Express Version 4.0 3.0
PCI Express Lanes - 12

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
36 (73.5%)
13 (26.5%)
Total votes: 49

Competitors

1. Apple M1 vs Apple M3 Pro
2. Apple M1 vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (11)
3. Apple M1 vs Apple M3
4. Apple M1 vs Apple M2 (8)
5. Apple M1 vs Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
6. Apple M1 vs Apple M4 Pro (12-Core)
7. AMD Ryzen 5 3500U vs Intel Core i3 1115G4 (3)
8. AMD Ryzen 5 3500U vs AMD Ryzen 5 5500U (4)
9. AMD Ryzen 5 3500U vs Intel Core i3 1215U
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U or Apple M1?
🌐 Register your profile and become part of NanoReview community!
EnglishРусский