Home > CPU Comparison > Apple M3 or Ryzen 5 3600: what's better?

Apple M3 vs AMD Ryzen 5 3600

67 out of 100
Apple M3
VS
40 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Apple M3
AMD Ryzen 5 3600

We compared two CPUs: the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 (laptop) with 8-cores against the 3.6 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (desktop) with 6-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
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
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Value for money (Beta)

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Currency
VS

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 3600 and M3
Advantages of Apple M3
  • Newer - released 4 years and 4 months later
  • More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 7 nanometers
  • Around 54.72 GB/s (115%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • 81% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3009 vs 1662 points
  • Has 2 more physical cores
  • Includes an integrated GPU Apple M3 GPU
Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 3600
  • Supports up to 128 GB DDR4-3200 RAM
  • Unlocked multiplier

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Apple M3
vs
Ryzen 5 3600

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Apple M3 +92%
140
Ryzen 5 3600
73
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Apple M3 +38%
712
Ryzen 5 3600
516
Cinebench 2026 (Single) - 388
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 2341 2039
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 M3 +81%
3009
Ryzen 5 3600
1662
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Apple M3 +63%
11815
Ryzen 5 3600
7249
File compression 1260 MB/sec 660.6 MB/sec
Clang compilation 94.7 Klines/sec 59 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 264.5 pages/sec 146 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 313.9 Mpixels/sec 207.8 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 297 pages/sec 143.3 pages/sec
Background blur 50.2 images/sec 37 images/sec
Photo processing 114.8 images/sec 54.2 images/sec
Ray tracing 12.9 Mpixels/sec 12.9 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 438 & 1134 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Apple M3 +84%
4707
Ryzen 5 3600
2559
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Apple M3 +8%
19065
Ryzen 5 3600
17667
Integer math 42.6 GOps/sec 48.5 GOps/sec
Floating point math 48.3 GOps/sec 28.6 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 231M Primes/sec 109M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 27.3M Strings/sec 23.6M Strings/sec
Data encryption 11.5 GBytes/sec 13.9 GBytes/sec
Data compression 225 MBytes/sec 219.6 MBytes/sec
Physics 1867 Frames/sec 1146 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 10B Matrices/sec 14.4B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 1563 & 37442 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Apple M3 +18%
160.35
Ryzen 5 3600
135.61

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 35.6 PPW 7.9 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 590.8 PPW 111.5 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 953.3 PPW 271.8 PPW
Blender / Watt 8.02 PPW 2.09 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 M3
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-22 (doannguyenmfs)Geekbench 6 CPU2991 / 11735
πŸ“˜ 2026-06-16 (darkknightSup)Geekbench 6 CPU2990 / 11498
Add View all (2)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-07-16 (abdou)Cinebench 2026388 / 2039
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-31 (Ike)Cinebench 202470 / 517
πŸ“˜ 2025-12-16 -> JeromeneilCinebench 202471 / 511
πŸ“˜ 2025-11-02 (BeastAsLow)Cinebench 202464 / 479
πŸ“˜ 2025-10-17 (RandomStorm)Cinebench 202472 / 419
Add View all (15)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M3 and AMD Ryzen 5 3600

General

Vendor Apple Amd
Released October 30, 2023 July 7, 2019
Type Laptop Desktop
Instruction Set ARMv8 x86-64
Codename Apple M3 Zen 2 (Matisse)
Integrated GPU Apple M3 GPU No
Successor - Apple M5 (10-Core) - AMD Ryzen 5 7600
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#163rd place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 6
P-Threads 4 12
Base Frequency (P) 4.05 GHz 3.6 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) - 4.2 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 -
E-Threads 4 -
Base Frequency (E) 2.75 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 8 6
Total Threads 8 12
Bus Frequency - 100 MHz
Multiplier 40x 36x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 64K (per core)
L2 Cache 16MB (shared) 512K (per core)
L3 Cache - 32MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No Yes

Package

Transistors 25 billions 3.8 billions
Fabrication Process 3 nm 7 nm
TDP (PL1) 20 W 65 W
Socket Apple M-Socket AM4
Peak Temperature 100Β°C 95Β°C
Desktop CPU ranking (#152nd place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M3 GPU -
GPU Base Clock 500 MHz -
GPU Boost Clock 1380 MHz -
Shading Units 1280 -
TMUs 80 -
ROPs 40 -
Execution Units 160 -
TGP 15 W -
iGPU FLOPS
Apple M3
3.5 TFLOPS
Ryzen 5 3600
n/a
See: Apple M3 GPU (10-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 5 3600 official page
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes - 16

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
10 (55.6%)
8 (44.4%)
Total votes: 18

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3. AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs Apple M1
4. AMD Ryzen 5 3600 vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600
5. Apple M3 vs Apple M1 Pro (17)
6. Apple M3 vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (4)
7. Apple M3 vs Apple M1
8. Apple M3 vs Apple M2
9. Apple M3 vs Apple M1 Max (4)
10. Apple M3 vs Apple M2 Pro
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Apple M3?
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