Home > CPU Comparison > Apple M2 or Ryzen 9 5900X: what's better?

Apple M2 vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

57 out of 100
Apple M2
VS
58 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Apple M2
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

We compared two CPUs: the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 (laptop) with 8-cores against the 3.7 GHz AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (desktop) with 12-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
The "iGPU" and "Power Efficiency" have a minor impact on the NanoReview Score for desktop CPU.
NanoReview Final Score
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Value for money (Beta)

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Currency
VS

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 5900X and M2
Advantages of Apple M2
  • Around 54.72 GB/s (115%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Newer - released 1 year and 9 months later
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 7 nanometers
  • Includes an integrated GPU Apple M2 GPU
  • 14% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2589 vs 2263 points
Advantages of AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
  • Supports up to 128 GB DDR4-3200 RAM
  • Unlocked multiplier
  • Has 4 more physical cores

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Apple M2
vs
Ryzen 9 5900X

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Apple M2 +32%
125
Ryzen 9 5900X
95
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Apple M2
582
Ryzen 9 5900X +105%
1193
Cinebench Scores (#112th place)
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 M2 +14%
2589
Ryzen 9 5900X
2263
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Apple M2
10122
Ryzen 9 5900X +25%
12701
File compression 1130 MB/sec 1170 MB/sec
Clang compilation 80.4 Klines/sec 126 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 235.3 pages/sec 217.8 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 266.1 Mpixels/sec 362 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 257.4 pages/sec 232 pages/sec
Background blur 42.1 images/sec 38.7 images/sec
Photo processing 107 images/sec 85.1 images/sec
Ray tracing 10.5 Mpixels/sec 31.5 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 465 & 441 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Apple M2 +12%
3883
Ryzen 9 5900X
3465
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Apple M2
15651
Ryzen 9 5900X +148%
38888
Integer math 37 GOps/sec 139.7 GOps/sec
Floating point math 37.5 GOps/sec 77.6 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 174M Primes/sec 257M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 23.7M Strings/sec 51.5M Strings/sec
Data encryption 9.5 GBytes/sec 31 GBytes/sec
Data compression 185.8 MBytes/sec 498.8 MBytes/sec
Physics 1667 Frames/sec 1984 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 7.8B Matrices/sec 33.1B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 4611 & 27058 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Apple M2
109.19
Ryzen 9 5900X +190%
316.84

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 32.3 PPW 11.4 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 562.3 PPW 121 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 869.5 PPW 370.4 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.07 PPW 3.02 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 M2
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-14 (T)Geekbench 6 CPU2647 / 10245
πŸ“˜ 2026-01-05 (AR)Geekbench 6 CPU2655 / 10211
πŸ“˜ 2025-10-24 (Shivam)Geekbench 6 CPU2619 / 9900
Add View all (3)
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-19 (D)Cinebench 202467 / 893
πŸ“˜ 2025-11-02 (Zoli)Cinebench 202493 / 1254
πŸ“˜ 2025-10-12 (Otamatone)Cinebench 202492 / 981
πŸ“˜ 2025-10-08 (aref)Cinebench 202494 / 1015
πŸ“˜ 2025-08-15 (SnakeyB)Cinebench 2024120 / 380
Add View all (12)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M2 and AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

General

Vendor Apple Amd
Released June 6, 2022 October 8, 2020
Type Laptop Desktop
Instruction Set ARMv8 x86-64
Codename Apple M2 Zen 3 (Vermeer)
Integrated GPU Apple M2 GPU No
Rival Equivalent - - Intel Core i9 11900K
Successor - Apple M5 (10-Core) - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#70th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 12
P-Threads 4 24
Base Frequency (P) 3.5 GHz 3.7 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) - 4.8 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 -
E-Threads 4 -
Base Frequency (E) 2.4 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 8 12
Total Threads 8 24
Bus Frequency - 100 MHz
Multiplier - 37x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 64K (per core)
L2 Cache 16MB (shared) 512K (per core)
L3 Cache - 64MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No Yes

Package

Transistors 20 billions 4.15 billions
Fabrication Process 5 nm 7 nm
TDP (PL1) 18 W 105 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) - 142 W
Socket Apple M-Socket AM4
Peak Temperature - 90Β°C
Desktop CPU ranking (#83rd place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M2 GPU -
GPU Base Clock 500 MHz -
GPU Boost Clock 1398 MHz -
Shading Units 1024 -
TMUs 64 -
ROPs 32 -
Execution Units 128 -
TGP 15 W -
iGPU FLOPS
Apple M2
2.9 TFLOPS
Ryzen 9 5900X
n/a
See: Apple M2 GPU (8-core) benchmarks

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-6400 - DDR4-3200
Max. Memory Size 24 GB 128 GB
Memory Channels 8 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth 102.4 GB/s 47.68 GB/s
ECC Support No Yes

Misc

Official Site - AMD Ryzen 9 5900X official page
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes - 20

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
17 (15.3%)
94 (84.7%)
Total votes: 111

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8. AMD Ryzen 9 5900X vs AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (5)
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X or Apple M2?
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