Apple M2 vs AMD Ryzen 9 H 270 vs AMD Ryzen 7 H 260
Apple M2
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The Apple M2 is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the late 2022 MacBook Air and, MacBook Pro 13. 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 16 MB shared L2 cache (up from 12 MB). 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 up to 2,4 GHz, the performance cores (P cluster) with up to 3,5 GHz and therefore higher than the M1 cores. The architecture should be similar to the A15 (iPhone 13) with Avalanche and Blizzard cores.
The chip features a unified memory architecture for the CPU and GPU cores and supports up to 24 GB LPDDR5-6400 for a bandwidth of up to 100GB/s.
According to Apple, the M2 offers a 18% higher CPU performance at the same power consumption level compared to the Apple M1. In our tests, the MacBook Pro 13 with active cooling was able to reach the 18% in Geekbench Multi. In other benchmarks we measured 12 to 15% gains compared to the M1. Therefore, the performance is now near the M1 Pro with 8 cores. The passively cooled MacBook Air may however suffer from throttling in longer load scenarios.
The integrated graphics card in the M2 offers 8 or 10 cores and a peak performance of 3.6 TFLOPs.
Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine with a peak performance of 16 TOPS (for AI hardware acceleration), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), Thunderbolt / USB 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders.
The Apple M2 includes 20 billion transistors (up from the 16 billion of the M1) and is manufactured in the second generation 5nm process at TSMC (most likely N5P). The power consumption is rated at 20W what we also measured under CPU load.
AMD Ryzen 9 H 270
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The Ryzen 9 H 270 is a rebadged Ryzen 9 270 (or Ryzen 9 8945HS) for China, making it a fast mobile laptop processor. This is an APU of the Hawk Point family that has eight Zen 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz to 5.2 GHz. This APU was introduced at CES 2025 and all of its cores are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads.
Architecture and Features
Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips were. The 16 TOPS NPU present here isn't powerful enough for systems built around the 9 270 to be Copilot+ certified.
Elsewhere, the chip has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM while also being compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt. It comes with 20 PCIe 4 lanes, giving fast NVMe SSD up to 7.8 GB/s of throughput.
Please note that this processor is not overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered to the motherboard for good instead (FP8 socket interface).
Performance
Its CPU performance is slated to be identical to the old Ryzen 9 8945HS and R9 7940HS.
Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.
Graphics
The Radeon 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) purring away at up to 2,800 MHz. The Radeon will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p and it will also HW-decode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs (such as AV1, HEVC and AVC) without breaking a sweat. As for gaming, most 2024 games run fine at 1080p with settings set to Low on this graphics adapter.
Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of the system is, how fast the RAM of the system is (there is no dedicated VRAM here).
Power consumption
This Ryzen 9 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving laptop makers a choice between longer battery life and higher performance. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.
The R9 H 270 is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for a reasonably good, as of early 2025, energy efficiency.
AMD Ryzen 7 H 260
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The AMD Ryzen 7 H 260 is a high-end notebook processor from the Hawk Point series with 8 cores and hyperthreading (SMT), which means it can process up to 16 threads simultaneously. At release, the CPU is only available in China and is technically practically identical to the older AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS or Ryzen 7 7840HS (slower AI engine).
The performance of the second-fastest model in the Hawk Point series should only be slightly behind the Ryzen 9 7940HS (+100 - 200 MHz clock, e.g. only 2% slower Turbo). As a result, the performance at 54W TDP should also be comparable to the AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX (also 8 Zen 4 cores, max 5.1 GHz, 55W, 32 MB L3) and thus clearly ahead of the old top model AMD Ryzen 9 6980HX resp. 6980HS (with lower TDP).
The chip integrates a modern RDNA 3-based graphics card (iGPU) called Radeon 780M with 12 CUs and up to 2.7GHz including AV1 video engine. Furthermore, a Xilinx FPGA-based XDNA AI accelerator is also integrated, which is now clocked higher. Hawk Point offers 2x USB 4 (40 Gbps), 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes and a dual-channel DDR5-5600 / LPDDR5x-7500 memory controller (with ECC support).
The Hawk Point series is a single chip (unlike the Dragon Range 7045HX series) and is manufactured at TSMC using the modern 4nm FinFET process.
| Model | Apple M2 | AMD Ryzen 9 H 270 | AMD Ryzen 7 H 260 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Apple M2 | AMD Hawk Point (Zen 4/4c) | AMD Hawk Point (Zen 4/4c) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Hawk Point (Zen 4/4c) Hawk Point-HS (Zen 4) |
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| Clock | 2424 - 3480 MHz | 4000 - 5200 MHz | 3800 - 5100 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 2 MB | 512 KB | 512 KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 20 MB | 8 MB | 8 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 8 MB | 16 MB | 16 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 | 8 / 16 8 x 5.2 GHz AMD Zen 4 | 8 / 16 8 x 5.1 GHz AMD Zen 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 20 Watt | 45 Watt | 45 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 20000 Million | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 5 nm | 4 nm | 4 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | DDR5-5600/LPDDR5x-7500 RAM, PCIe 4, USB 4, Ryzen AI (16 TOPS), MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, AVX-512, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME | DDR5-5600/LPDDR5x-7500 RAM, PCIe 4, Ryzen AI, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, AVX-512, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple M2 10-Core GPU ( - 1398 MHz) | AMD Radeon 780M ( - 2800 MHz) | AMD Radeon 780M ( - 2700 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | www.apple.com | www.amd.com | www.amd.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Hawk Point-HS (Zen 4) | Hawk Point-HS (Zen 4) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Die Size | 178 mm2 | 178 mm2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | FP8 | FP7/FP7r2/FP8 |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Apple M2 → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks AMD Ryzen 9 H 270 → 0% n=0
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
