Apple M1 vs Intel Core i5-13420H vs Intel Core i7-13705H

Apple M1

The Apple M1 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2020 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac Mini. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power-efficiency cores. The big cores offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 12 MB shared L2 cache. According to Apple the performance of these cores should be better than anything on the market (in late 2020). The four efficiency cores are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. The efficiency cores (E cluster) clock with 600 - 2064 MHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with 600 - 3204 MHz.

The M1 is available in two TDP variants, a passive cooled 10 Watt variant for the MacBook Air and an active cooled faster variant for the MacBook Pro 13 and Mac Mini. Those should offer a better-sustained performance according to Apple.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 offers 8 cores (7 cores in the entry MacBook Air) and a peak performance of 2.6 teraflops. Apple claims that it is faster than any other iGPU at the time of announcement.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 11 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.

The Apple M1 includes 16 billion transistors (up from the 10 billion of the A12Z Bionic and therefore double the amount of a Tiger Lake-U chip like the i7-1185G7) and is manufactured in 5nm at TSMC.

Intel Core i5-13420H

The Intel Core i5-13420H is a mid-range mobile CPU for laptops based on the Raptor Lake-H series (Alder Lake architecture). It was announced in early 2023 and offers 4 of the 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 4 of the 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 16 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.1 to 4.6 GHz (single core boost, all core up to 4.5 GHz) on the performance cluster and 1.5 to 3.4 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 12 MB L3 cache. 

Performance

Thanks to the higher clock speeds of the improved Intel 7 process, the Core i5-13420H can surpass the old Core i5-12450H (e.g., + 200 MHz boost).

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-5200 (up from DDR5-4800 of the i5-12500H). The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU now supports PCIe 5.0 x8 for a GPU and two PCIe 4.0 x4 for SSDs.

The integrated graphics card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 48 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units).

The CPU is rated at 45 W base power (115 W PL2) but most laptops will use a PL1 of around 60 Watt. The SoC is manufactured in a further improved 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7.

Intel Core i7-13705H

The Intel Core i7-13705H is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Raptor Lake-H series (Alder Lake architecture). It was announced in early 2023 and offers 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 20 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.4 to 5 GHz (single core turbo, all-core 4.7 GHz) on the performance cluster and 1.8 to 3.7 GHz on the efficiency cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare with the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 24 MB L3 cache. Similar to the i7-13700H but without vPro support and the 13705H uses a different package and socket.

Performance

Thanks to the high core count and high clock speed, the Core i7-13705H should be similar to the old top model, the Core i9-12900HK. Therefore, the CPU is very well suited for all demanding use cases like gaming, content creation, and scientific calculations. The performance should be identical to the Core i7-13700H.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-5200 (up from 4800 MHz for the 12th gen). The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU now supports PCIe 5.0 x8 for a GPU and two PCIe 4.0 x4 for SSDs.

The integrated graphics card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 96 EUs (Execution Units) clocked at up to 1.5 GHz.

The CPU is rated at 45 W base power (115 W PL2) but most laptops will use a PL1 of around 60 Watt. The SoC is manufactured in a 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7 (improved over the 12th Gen).