Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 13900K or Apple M3: what's better?

Intel Core i9 13900K vs Apple M3

82 out of 100
Intel Core i9 13900K
VS
65 out of 100
Apple M3
Intel Core i9 13900K
Apple M3

We compared two CPUs: the 3.0 GHz Intel Core i9 13900K (desktop) with 24-cores against the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 (laptop) 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 (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
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 M3 and 13900K
Advantages of Intel Core i9 13900K
  • Supports up to 192 GB DDR5-5600 RAM
  • Has 16 more physical cores
  • Unlocked multiplier
  • Newer PCI Express version – 5.0
Advantages of Apple M3
  • More powerful Apple M3 GPU integrated graphics: 3.5 vs 0.8 TFLOPS
  • More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 10 nanometers
  • Newer - released 1 year and 2 months later
  • Around 12.8 GB/s (14%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 13900K
vs
Apple M3

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i9 13900K
124
Apple M3 +13%
140
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i9 13900K +166%
1896
Apple M3
712
Cinebench 2026 (Single) 673 -
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) 8146 2341
Cinebench Scores (#35th 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 13900K
2939
Apple M3 +2%
3009
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 13900K +73%
20498
Apple M3
11815
File compression 1570 MB/sec 1260 MB/sec
Clang compilation 193.2 Klines/sec 94.7 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 477 pages/sec 264.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 560.7 Mpixels/sec 313.9 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 301.8 pages/sec 297 pages/sec
Background blur 75.8 images/sec 50.2 images/sec
Photo processing 162.5 images/sec 114.8 images/sec
Ray tracing 43.5 Mpixels/sec 12.9 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 683 & 438 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 13900K
4596
Apple M3 +2%
4707
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 13900K +205%
58087
Apple M3
19065
Integer math 206.4 GOps/sec 42.6 GOps/sec
Floating point math 150.5 GOps/sec 48.3 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 232M Primes/sec 231M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 86.9M Strings/sec 27.3M Strings/sec
Data encryption 46.2 GBytes/sec 11.5 GBytes/sec
Data compression 785.8 MBytes/sec 225 MBytes/sec
Physics 3101 Frames/sec 1867 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 46B Matrices/sec 10B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 12796 & 1563 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 13900K +230%
529.69
Apple M3
160.35

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 15.2 PPW 35.6 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 164 PPW 590.8 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 464.7 PPW 953.3 PPW
Blender / Watt 4.24 PPW 8.02 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
Intel Core i9 13900K
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-07-11 (Nagambie)Cinebench 2026673 / 8146
πŸ“˜ 2026-05-09 (veshelya)Cinebench 2024133 / 941
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-23 (Rohit007)Cinebench 2024124 / 1906
πŸ“˜ 2025-11-09 (LieInMyEyes)Cinebench 2024126 / 1771
πŸ“˜ 2025-05-21 (Richh)Cinebench 2024122 / 1823
Add View all (13)
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)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 13900K and Apple M3

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released September 27, 2022 October 30, 2023
Type Desktop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Raptor Lake Apple M3
Model number i9-13900K -
Integrated GPU UHD Graphics 770 Apple M3 GPU
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 7900X -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 285K - Apple M5 (10-Core)
Intel CPU rating (#14th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 8 4
P-Threads 16 4
Base Frequency (P) 3.0 GHz 4.05 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5.4 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 16 4
E-Threads 16 4
Base Frequency (E) 2.2 GHz 2.75 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 4.3 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 24 8
Total Threads 32 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 30x 40x
L1 Cache 80K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) 16MB (shared)
L3 Cache 36MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier Yes No

Package

Transistors - 25 billions
Fabrication Process 10 nm 3 nm
TDP (PL1) 125 W 20 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 253 W -
Socket LGA-1700 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100Β°C 100Β°C
Desktop CPU ranking (#21st place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 770 Apple M3 GPU
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 500 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1650 MHz 1380 MHz
Shading Units 256 1280
TMUs 16 80
ROPs 8 40
Execution Units 32 160
TGP 15 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 13900K
0.8 TFLOPS
Apple M3 +338%
3.5 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M3 GPU (10-core) compared to UHD Graphics 770

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR5-5600
- DDR4-3200		 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 192 GB 24 GB
Memory Channels 2 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 89.6 GB/s 102.4 GB/s
ECC Support Yes No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 13900K official page -
PCI Express Version 5.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 20 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
171 (55.3%)
138 (44.7%)
Total votes: 309

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5. Apple M3 vs Apple M2
6. Apple M3 vs Apple M2 Pro
7. Intel Core i9 13900K vs Apple M3 Pro
8. Intel Core i9 13900K vs Intel Core i7 14700K (1)
9. Intel Core i9 13900K vs Apple M2 Pro (4)
10. Intel Core i9 13900K vs Apple M2 Ultra (12)
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M3 or Intel Core i9 13900K?
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Bryan March 11, 2025 at 04:32 PM
The M3 line will go the way of many dead chips (think Ultrasparc). It's a good chip for a low performing platform but doesn't work well in a high performance computing environments such as the AI world is revealing.
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