Apple M2 vs Intel Core i7-12800HX vs Intel Core i7-12850HX
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.
Intel Core i7-12800HX
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The Intel Core i7-12800HX is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in mid 2022 and offers 8 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 24 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.0 to 4.8 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.5 to 3.4 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 25 MB L3 cache. The CPU offers an open multiplicator and therefore the possibility to overclock the CPU cores. Compared to the similar i7-12850HX, the 12800HX does not offer vPro or ECC memory support.
Features
The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200. 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 supports 48 PCIe lanes consisting of 16 Gen5 (x16 or 2x8), 20 Gen4 and 12 Gen3.
The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.45 GHz.
Performance
The average 12800HX in our database is in the same league as the i9-12900HX while being noticeably faster than the Ryzen 7 7745HX, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a very fast chip, as of early 2023.
Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the cooling solution of your laptop is, and how high the CPU power limits are.
Power consumption
The chip's "minimum assured" power consumption sits at 45 W. Its peak 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 more performance out of the 12800HX.
This Core i7 series processor is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.
Intel Core i7-12850HX
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core i7-12850HX is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in mid 2022 and offers 8 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 24 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.1 to 4.8 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.5 to 3.4 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 25 MB L3 cache. The i7-12850HX is a successor to the mobile Xeon CPUs and offers vPro management features and ECC memory support. CPU overclocking however is limited compared to the consumer i7-12800HX.
Features
The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200. 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 supports 48 PCIe lanes consisting of 16 Gen5 (x16 or 2x8), 20 Gen4 and 12 Gen3.
The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.45 GHz.
Performance
The average 12850HX in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 7 7840HS, Ryzen 9 7940HS, Core i7-12700H, Core i9-12900H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a very fast chip, as of early 2023.
Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the cooling solution of your laptop 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; its Base power consumption is supposed to be around 55 W. Most laptop makers will probably go for a value higher than 55 W to get better performance.
The i7-12850HX is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.
| Model | Apple M2 | Intel Core i7-12800HX | Intel Core i7-12850HX | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Apple M2 | Intel Alder Lake-S | Intel Alder Lake-S | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Alder Lake-S Alder Lake-HX |
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| Clock | 2424 - 3480 MHz | 1500 - 4800 MHz | 1500 - 4800 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 2 MB | 1.4 MB | 1.4 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 20 MB | 14 MB | 14 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 8 MB | 25 MB | 25 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 | 16 / 24 | 16 / 24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 20 Watt | 55 Watt | 55 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 20000 Million | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 5 nm | 10 nm | 10 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | DDR4-3200/DDR5-4800 RAM, PCIe 5, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, VMX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA | DDR4-3200/DDR5-4800 RAM, PCIe 5, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, vPro Enterp., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple M2 10-Core GPU ( - 1398 MHz) | Intel UHD Graphics 770 ( - 1450 MHz) | Intel UHD Graphics 770 ( - 1450 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chip AI | 15.8 TOPS INT8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | www.apple.com | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Alder Lake-HX | Alder Lake-HX | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | BGA1964 | BGA1964 |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Apple M2 → 100% n=14
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i7-12800HX → 178% n=14
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i7-12850HX → 153% n=14
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
