Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 12900H or M2 Max: what's better?

Intel Core i9 12900H vs Apple M2 Max

55 out of 100
Intel Core i9 12900H
VS
68 out of 100
Apple M2 Max
Intel Core i9 12900H
Apple M2 Max

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 2.5 GHz Intel Core i9 12900H with 14-cores against the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 Max 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 (1)

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.
๐Ÿ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between Max and 12900H
Advantages of Intel Core i9 12900H
  • Has 2 more physical cores
Advantages of Apple M2 Max
  • More powerful Apple M2 Max GPU (38-core) integrated graphics: 13.6 vs 2.2 TFLOPS
  • More modern manufacturing process โ€“ 5 versus 10 nanometers
  • Supports quad-channel memory
  • Supports up to 96 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • Newer - released 1 year and 1 month later
  • 12% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2695 vs 2397 points

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 12900H
vs
M2 Max

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i9 12900H
107
M2 Max +14%
122
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i9 12900H
984
M2 Max +4%
1022
Cinebench Scores (157th and 148th 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)
Core i9 12900H
2397
M2 Max +12%
2695
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H
11964
M2 Max +24%
14891
File compression 898.1 MB/sec 1690 MB/sec
Clang compilation 97.6 Klines/sec 131.8 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 270 pages/sec 368.6 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 325.3 Mpixels/sec 382.1 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 248.3 pages/sec 272.7 pages/sec
Background blur 52.7 images/sec 54.1 images/sec
Photo processing 94.2 images/sec 149.6 images/sec
Ray tracing 23.8 Mpixels/sec 17 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] โ€“ 626 & 693 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 12900H
3644
M2 Max +14%
4136
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H
26596
M2 Max +1%
26843
Integer math 91.3 GOps/sec 57.7 GOps/sec
Floating point math 66 GOps/sec 73.4 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 104M Primes/sec 359M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 34.4M Strings/sec 41.1M Strings/sec
Data encryption 18 GBytes/sec 15.7 GBytes/sec
Data compression 308.2 MBytes/sec 335.2 MBytes/sec
Physics 1700 Frames/sec 3849 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 18.4B Matrices/sec 14.7B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] โ€“ 3998 & 1034 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 12900H
210.35
M2 Max +20%
253.11

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 21.9 PPW 20.4 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 265.9 PPW 297.8 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 591 PPW 536.9 PPW
Blender / Watt 4.67 PPW 5.06 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 i9 12900H
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-11-21 (Robert L)Cinebench 2024104 / 765
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-05-02 (Toksik Vegeta)Cinebench 2024107 / 984
Add View all (2)
Apple M2 Max
No benchmark results yet
Add

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 12900H and Apple M2 Max

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released January 4, 2022 January 17, 2023
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Alder Lake Apple M2
Model number i9-12900H -
Integrated GPU Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M2 Max GPU (38-core)
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 288V - Apple M5 Max (40-ัore GPU)
Intel CPU rating (#115th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 6 8
P-Threads 12 8
Base Frequency (P) 2.5 GHz 3.5 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 8 4
E-Threads 8 4
Base Frequency (E) 1.8 GHz 2.4 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.8 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 14 12
Total Threads 20 12
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 25x 35x
L1 Cache 80K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 1280K (per core) 32MB (shared)
L3 Cache 24MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 67 billions
Fabrication Process 10 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 35-45 W (configurable) 50 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 115 W -
Socket BGA-1744 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100ยฐC 100ยฐC
Laptop processors ranking (152nd and 64th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M2 Max GPU (38-core)
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 450 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1450 MHz 1398 MHz
Shading Units 768 4864
TMUs 48 304
ROPs 24 152
Execution Units 96 608
TGP 15 W 70 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 12900H
2.2 TFLOPS
M2 Max +518%
13.6 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M2 Max GPU (38-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 96 GB
Memory Channels 2 4
Max. Memory Bandwidth - 409.6 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 12900H official page -
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 28 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
65 (20.6%)
250 (79.4%)
Total votes: 315

Competitors

1. Apple M2 Max vs Apple M4 (10-Core)
2. Apple M2 Max vs Apple M4 Pro (12-Core)
3. Apple M2 Max vs Apple M4 Max (16-Core)
4. Apple M2 Max vs Apple M3 Pro
5. Apple M2 Max vs Apple M3 Max
6. Intel Core i9 12900H vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (4)
7. Intel Core i9 12900H vs AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (1)
8. Intel Core i9 12900H vs Intel Core i9 13900H
9. Intel Core i9 12900H vs AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M2 Max or Intel Core i9 12900H?
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M. David Dzidzikashvili May 15, 2023 at 11:14 AM
Once the new 2023-2024 3nm Apple M3 Max chip gets introduced to the market, this will definitely be the new gamechanger chip for the entire market as the new 3nm M3 chip with a 40-core CPU will definitely deliver more visible power & performance vs M2 generation and vs i9. I think with the M3 chips Apple will enter the gaming space, and the newer generation Macs will have much better gaming benchmark scores and the overall FPS rates and performance. M3 Macs will close gaming performance gaps vs Windows OS based platforms and RTX series gaming graphics cards. The current M2 has already made substantial progress in this regard, so M3 with 3nm chip infrastructure will again raise the bar very high. There will be other performance improvements too that the M3 will offer if you are going to perform GPU-demanding tasks such as 3D graphic rendering or modeling, video and audio production, etc. Here too the next-gen M3 3nm process will offer up to 15% higher performance and 30% lower power draw versus N5. By comparison, N5P is a 7% improvement with 15% less power draw vs prior gen.
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