Apple M4 (10 cores) vs Intel Core Ultra 9 288V
Apple M4 (10 cores)
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The 10-core Apple M4 is an impressively fast ARM architecture processor (SoC) sporting 4 performance and 6 efficient CPU cores along with a 16-core neural engine and a 10-core GPU with hardware RT support and other modern features. On-package 7500 MT/s LPDDR5x RAM, USB 4 support and Thunderbolt 4 support are onboard as well, as are Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
The M4 debuted in May 2024 as part of an iPad launch event; its 4 performance cores run at up to 4.4 GHz, representing a healthy improvement over the M3 (10-core GPU) and its 4.06 GHz top clock speed. Besides, this new chip also has 6 efficient cores at its disposal that run at up to 2.9 GHz. The M3 had to make do with 4 performance cores and 4 efficient cores, for reference.
Architecture and Features
The new CPU cores run at faster clock speeds than what the M3 was capable of while also featuring some minor architectural improvements. A heavily customized version of ARM's v9.4-A microarchitecture is reportedly employed here. The M4 comes with on-package LPDDR5x-7500 RAM (120 GB/s) whereas the M3 was limited to 6400 MT/s. The updated NPU delivers up to 38 TOPS of performance for AI workloads.
Performance
In 2024 iPad Pros, the 3 nm chip is 10% to 20% faster than the M3 (10 GPU cores) in both multi-thread and single-thread short-term workloads. It also delivers about 10% higher multi-thread performance than the 9-core M4. This puts the 10-core part on an equal footing with the Ryzen 7 7745HX, Core i7-13705H and other higher-end x86 processors released in 2023 and 2024.
iPad Pros come with no active cooling solution however Mac minis and MacBook Pros do have one and the latest iMacs probably do as well. As our Fall 2024 Mac mini review shows, the M4's short-term performance doesn't benefit much from the presence of a fan, however its sustained performance benefits tremendously.
Graphics
The M4 GPU (10 cores) has hardware support for ray tracing as well as mesh shading and other modern technologies. It supports external displays with resolutions as high as 8K.
The graphics adapter runs at higher clock speeds than what the (otherwise identical) 10-core GPU built into the 9-core M4 can muster. As our Mac mini 2024 review confirmed, its performance is good enough to run many 2023 and 2024 games at 1080p on low or medium quality settings.
- Сyberpunk 2077 2.1 Phantom Liberty (1080p, Med): 28 fps
Much like it is with CPU performance, M4-powered iPad Pros will be much slower in long-term GPU-intensive workloads than iMacs, Mac minis and MacBook Pros due to the lack of proper cooling.
Power consumption
This specific M4 chip is found in 2024 iPad Pros, 2024 iMacs, 2024 Mac minis and 2024 MacBook Pros. Within the thin metal cases of the iPads - no active cooling - the chip's sustained power consumption hovers in the 4 W - 5 W area, with short-term peaks of up to 14 W possible. However, Mac minis and MacBook Pros do have an active cooling solution (and the new iMacs probably do, too) meaning the power consumption figures are several times higher. In our Fall 2024 Mac mini review, the SoC consumed 30 W to 40 W when under high loads.
The M4 is built with a "second generation" 3 nm TSMC process which is still cutting-edge as of late 2024.
Intel Core Ultra 9 288V
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The Intel Core Ultra 7 288V is the fastest Lunar Lake family processor as of Nov 2024 thanks to its higher TDP power target and higher clock speeds. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It sports 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.7 GHz and 5.1 GHz respectively, along with the promising new Arc 140V iGPU and 32 GB of on-package, non-replaceable LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 48 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well. A vPro-enabled version of the CPU became available in early 2025.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestmont, the difference is much higher at 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 288V has a very healthy 12 MB of level 3 cache; elsewhere, it has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 48 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
The 288V should be just a couple of percentage points faster than the Core Ultra 7 165U and Core i7-1360P in multi-threaded tasks.
Generally speaking, the 256V, 258V, 266V, 268V, 288V are faster than the 226V, 228V, 236V and 228V due to the difference in their last-level cache size (8 MB vs 12 MB) as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. It depends on the TDP figures of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V is here to replace the Arc 8 iGPU. Its 8 Xe² architecture "cores" run at up to 2,050 MHz and it also has 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. The adapter is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
All 2023 and 2024 games are playable at 1080p on low graphics settings or higher with this iGPU. We got well over 30 fps in Ghost of Tsushima and almost 40 fps in Baldur's Gate 3. This means the Radeon 780M gets left behind while the Radeon 890M reigns supreme.
Power consumption
Unlike the slower 268V, 266V, 258V, 256V, 238V, 236V, 228V and 226V, this 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 30 W when under long-term workloads rather than 17 W. The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for all of them is identical: 37 W.
| Model | Apple M4 (10 cores) | Intel Core Ultra 9 288V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Apple M4 | Intel Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Lunar Lake Lunar Lake |
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| Clock | 2890 - 4464 MHz | 3300 - 5100 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 4 MB | 14 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 10 / 10 4 x 4.5 GHz Apple M4 P-Core 6 x 2.9 GHz Apple M4 E-Core | 8 / 8 4 x 5.1 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 40 Watt | 30 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP Turbo PL2 | 40 Watt | 37 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 28 Million | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 3 nm | 3 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | Unified Memory LPDDR5X-7500 (120 GB/s), 16-Core Neural Engine, Media Engine (Encoding / Decoding: H.264, HEVC, ProRes, ProRes RAW, AV1 Decoding only) | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (48 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple M4 10-core GPU | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 2050 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | ARM | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Lunar Lake | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 1.4 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 12 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | BGA2833 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | ark.intel.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Apple M4 (10 cores) → 100% n=15
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 9 288V → 81% n=15
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
