Apple M1 Max vs Intel Core i5-13450HX

Apple M1 Max

The Apple M1 Max is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2021 MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models. It offers all 10 cores available in the chip divided in eight performance cores (P-cores with 600 - 3220 MHz) and two power-efficiency cores (E-cores with 600 - 2064 MHz). There is no Turbo Boost for single cores or short burst periods. The cores are similar to the cores in the Apple M1.

The big cores (codename Firestorm) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 24 MB shared L2 cache (up from 12 MB in the M1). The four efficiency cores (codename Icestorm) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 48 MB SLC (System Level Cache). The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with 600 - 2064 MHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with 600 - 3228 MHz.

The unified memory (32 or 64 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 512 bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU. This is the main difference to the M1 Pro and the CPU performance is quite similar.

The biggest difference to the M1 Pro is the bigger integrated GPU with 24 or 32 cores (up from 16).

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine, a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including two ProRes engines).

The M1 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC and integrates 57 billion transistors. The peak power consumption of the chip was advertised around 30W for CPU intensive tasks. 

Intel Core i5-13450HX

The Intel Core i5-13450HX is a fast mid-range mobile processor of the Raptor Lake series. Is was announced in early 2023. The CPU integrates 6 fast Raptor Cove performance cores (P-cores) with HyperThreading and 4 Gracemont efficiency cores without HyperThreading. The P-Cores clock between 2.4 GHz (base) up to 4.6 GHz (single core boost, all-core 4.5 GHz). The smaller E-Cores clock between 1.8 and 3.4 GHz. All cores can access the combined 20 MB L3 cache (compared to the 36 MB of the i9 models).

Compared to Alder Lake, Raptor Lake offers improved P-Cores (Raptor Cove micro-architecture) with bigger Caches and more E-Cores (same Gracemont micro-architecture). Furthermore, the chip supports faster DDR5 memory (up to 5600 MHz for the 13980HX, but only 4800 MHz for the i5).

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 13450HX as of August 2023, we have tested several systems featuring the Core i5-12600K, a CPU with very similar specs (six P-cores mated to four E-cores, both running at insignificantly faster clock speeds than what the 13450HX has). Based on that, we expect the 13450HX to be 10% to 15% behind the Ryzen 7 7840HS and the Ryzen 9 7940HS, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.

Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the system's cooling solution is and how high the CPU power limits are.

Power consumption

The chip's "minimum assured" power consumption sits at 45 W. Its Turbo power consumption is not supposed to go over 157 W and its "base" power consumption is supposed to be around 55 W. Most laptop makers will probably go for a value much higher than 55 W to extract as much performance out of the chip as possible.

The i5-13450HX is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.