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

Intel Core i9 12900H vs Apple M2 Max

Intel Core i9 12900H
VS
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
Generic CPU rating

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
  • Newer - released 1-year later
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 10 nanometers
  • Supports up to 96 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • 23% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2773 vs 2260 points
Promotion

Test in Benchmarks

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

Cinebench R23

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)
Core i9 12900H +18%
1918
M2 Max
1626
Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H +12%
16619
M2 Max
14889
Submit your Cinebench result

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Core i9 12900H
2260
M2 Max +23%
2773
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H
9765
M2 Max +51%
14768
File compression 763.2 MB/sec 1740 MB/sec
Clang compilation 79.6 Klines/sec 128.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 225.2 pages/sec 358.1 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 309.3 Mpixels/sec 385.8 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 210 pages/sec 262.5 pages/sec
Background blur 30.9 images/sec 54.1 images/sec
Photo processing 76.3 images/sec 143 images/sec
Ray tracing 17.6 Mpixels/sec 17.8 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2]

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 12900H
3861
M2 Max +8%
4152
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H +9%
28701
M2 Max
26269
Integer math 98.2 GOps/sec 58.2 GOps/sec
Floating point math 71.2 GOps/sec 74 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 111M Primes/sec 363M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 37.4M Strings/sec 41.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 19.6 GBytes/sec 15.8 GBytes/sec
Data compression 333.7 MBytes/sec 338.3 MBytes/sec
Physics 1812 Frames/sec 3846 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 19.9B Matrices/sec 12.1B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4]

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)

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 -
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) 30 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 115 W -
Socket BGA-1744 Apple M-Socket
Peak temperature 100°C -

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 -
TGP 15 W 70 W
Max. Resolution - 7680x4320 - 60 Hz
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 12900H
1.69 TFLOPS
M2 Max
13.6 TFLOPS

Memory Support

Memory types - DDR5-4800
- DDR4-3200
- LPDDR5-5200
- LPDDR4x-4267		 - LPDDR5-6400
Memory Size 64 GB 96 GB
Max. Memory Channels 2 8
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 -
PCI Express Lanes 28 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
58 (22.1%)
204 (77.9%)
Total votes: 262

Сompetitors

1. Apple M1 Max vs Apple M2 Max
2. Intel Core i9 13900K vs Apple M2 Max
3. Apple M1 Ultra vs Apple M2 Max
4. Intel Core i9 13980HX vs Apple M2 Max
5. Intel Core i7 12700H vs Apple M2 Max
6. Intel Core i9 13900H vs Apple M2 Max
7. Apple M2 vs Intel Core i9 12900H
8. Intel Core i7 12700H vs Intel Core i9 12900H
9. Intel Core i7 13700HX vs Intel Core i9 12900H
10. AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX vs Intel Core i9 12900H
Compare other CPUs (580+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M2 Max or Intel Core i9 12900H?
Avatar
M. David Dzidzikashvili 15 May 2023 11:14
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.
+18 Reply
Promotion
EnglishРусский