Home > CPU Comparison > Core i7 1280P or Apple M2: what's better?

Intel Core i7 1280P vs Apple M2

50 out of 100
Intel Core i7 1280P
VS
57 out of 100
Apple M2
Intel Core i7 1280P
Apple M2

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7 1280P with 14-cores against the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 with 8-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 M2 and 1280P
Advantages of Intel Core i7 1280P
  • Supports up to 64 GB DDR5-4800 RAM
  • Has 6 more physical cores
Advantages of Apple M2
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 10 nanometers
  • More powerful Apple M2 GPU integrated graphics: 2.9 vs 2.2 TFLOPS
  • 11% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2589 vs 2325 points

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i7 1280P
vs
Apple M2

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i7 1280P
91
Apple M2 +37%
125
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i7 1280P +6%
619
Apple M2
582
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)
Core i7 1280P
2325
Apple M2 +11%
2589
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i7 1280P +7%
10823
Apple M2
10122
File compression 711.9 MB/sec 1130 MB/sec
Clang compilation 94.4 Klines/sec 80.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 238.3 pages/sec 235.3 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 294 Mpixels/sec 266.1 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 235 pages/sec 257.4 pages/sec
Background blur 47.9 images/sec 42.1 images/sec
Photo processing 85.7 images/sec 107 images/sec
Ray tracing 20.9 Mpixels/sec 10.5 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 434 & 465 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i7 1280P
3307
Apple M2 +17%
3883
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i7 1280P +28%
20020
Apple M2
15651
Integer math 74.1 GOps/sec 37 GOps/sec
Floating point math 50.5 GOps/sec 37.5 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 85M Primes/sec 174M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 24.2M Strings/sec 23.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 13.1 GBytes/sec 9.5 GBytes/sec
Data compression 219.9 MBytes/sec 185.8 MBytes/sec
Physics 1392 Frames/sec 1667 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 12.9B Matrices/sec 7.8B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 591 & 4611 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i7 1280P +57%
171.41
Apple M2
109.19

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 22.1 PPW 32.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 386.5 PPW 562.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 715 PPW 869.5 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.12 PPW 6.07 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
Intel Core i7 1280P
No benchmark results yet
Add
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)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i7 1280P and Apple M2

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released February 23, 2022 June 6, 2022
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Alder Lake Apple M2
Model number i7-1280P -
Integrated GPU Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M2 GPU
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 7 6800U​ -
Successor - - Apple M5 (10-Core)
Intel CPU rating (#155th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 6 4
P-Threads 12 4
Base Frequency (P) 1.8 GHz 3.5 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 4.8 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 8 4
E-Threads 8 4
Base Frequency (E) 1.3 GHz 2.4 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.6 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 14 8
Total Threads 20 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 18x -
L1 Cache 80K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 1280K (per core) 16MB (shared)
L3 Cache 24MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 20 billions
Fabrication Process 10 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 20-28 W (configurable) 18 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 64 W -
Socket BGA-1744 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100Β°C -

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M2 GPU
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 500 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1450 MHz 1398 MHz
Shading Units 768 1024
TMUs 48 64
ROPs 24 32
Execution Units 96 128
TGP 15 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i7 1280P
2.2 TFLOPS
Apple M2 +32%
2.9 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M2 GPU (8-core) compared to Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96EU)

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR5-4800
- DDR4-3200
- LPDDR5-5200
- LPDDR4x-4267		 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 64 GB 24 GB
Memory Channels 2 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth - 102.4 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i7 1280P official page -
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 20 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
98 (59.4%)
67 (40.6%)
Total votes: 165

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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M2 or Intel Core i7 1280P?
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