Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) vs Intel Core i9 12900HX

[ VERDICT ] Winner: Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) (97/100)

Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) leads overall with a score of 97/100 compared to Intel Core i9 12900HX (60/100), offering superior measured performance and technical specifications.

Why choose Apple M5 Pro (18-Core):
  • + Higher Efficiency score (98 vs 52)
  • + Higher Performance score (100 vs 71)
[ WINNER ]
Apple M5 Pro (18-Core)
Apple

Apple M5 Pro (18-Core)

97/100
View Full Specs →
Intel Core i9 12900HX
Intel

Intel Core i9 12900HX

60/100
View Full Specs →

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Normalized Lab Scores
Benchmark measurements and scores across compared devices
Benchmark Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Efficiency 98.0 Excellent WINNER 52.0 Below Average
Performance 100.0 Excellent WINNER 71.0 Good

Detailed Technical Specifications

CPU

CPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Base Frequency (E) 4.38 GHz 1.7 GHz
Base Frequency (P) 4.61 GHz 2.3 GHz
E-Cores 12 8
E-Threads 12 8
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 80K (per core)
Multiplier 46x 23x
P-Cores 6 8
P-Threads 6 16
Total Cores 18 16
Total Threads 18 24
Unlocked Multiplier No Yes
Bus Frequency — 100 MHz
L2 Cache — 1280K (per core)
L3 Cache — 30MB (shared)
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) — 3.6 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) — 5 GHz

GeekBench v6

GeekBench v6 specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Background blur 100.3 images/sec 58.1 images/sec
Clang compilation 262.5 Klines/sec 121.1 Klines/sec
File compression 2530 MB/sec 1110 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 738.1 pages/sec 336.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 744.9 Mpixels/sec 382.4 Mpixels/sec
Photo processing 250.8 images/sec 116.9 images/sec
Ray tracing 46.5 Mpixels/sec 29.6 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 450.7 pages/sec 254 pages/sec

General

General specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Codename Apple M5 Alder Lake
Instruction Set ARMv9 x86-64
Integrated GPU Apple M5 Pro GPU (20-core) UHD Graphics (32EU)
Released March 3, 2026 May 10, 2022
Type Laptop Laptop
Vendor Apple Intel
AMD Equivalent — -AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX
Model number — i9-12900HX
Successor — -Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX

Memory Support

Memory Support specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
ECC Support No No
Max. Memory Bandwidth 307 GB/s 76.8 GB/s
Max. Memory Size 64 GB 128 GB
Memory Channels 16 2
Memory Types - LPDDR5X-9600 - DDR5-4800- DDR4-3200

Package

Package specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Fabrication Process 3 nm 10 nm
Peak Temperature 100°C 100°C
Socket Apple M-Socket BGA-1964
Transistors 28 billions —
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) — 157 W
TDP (PL1) — 45-55 W (configurable)

PassMark

PassMark specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Data compression 697.9 MBytes/sec 396.2 MBytes/sec
Data encryption 40.8 GBytes/sec 22.7 GBytes/sec
Extended instructions 33.3B Matrices/sec 24.1B Matrices/sec
Find prime numbers 486M Primes/sec 132M Primes/sec
Floating point math 186.8 GOps/sec 83.7 GOps/sec
Integer math 132.7 GOps/sec 112.6 GOps/sec
Physics 5687 Frames/sec 2020 Frames/sec
Random string sorting 85.6M Strings/sec 43.6M Strings/sec

iGPU

iGPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Execution Units 320 32
GPU Boost Clock 1620 MHz 1550 MHz
Integrated Graphics Apple M5 Pro GPU (20-core) Intel UHD Graphics (32EU)
ROPs 80 8
Shading Units 2560 256
TGP 28 W 15 W
TMUs 160 16
GPU Base Clock — 300 MHz

Misc

Misc specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Official Site — Intel Core i9 12900HX official page
PCI Express Lanes — 20
PCI Express Version — 5.0
Technologies — - Compute: ABM, ADX, BMI1, BMI2, CLMUL, F16C, SHA- Performance: EIST, TBT 2.0, TBT 3.0, TSX- Virtualization: VT-d, VT-x- Security: RDRAND, TXT, XD bit

Performance Per Watt

Performance Per Watt specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i9 12900HX
Blender / Watt — 5.56 PPW
Cinebench 2024 / Watt — 23.1 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt — 262.9 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt — 598.8 PPW

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