Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 vs Apple M2 vs Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
Intel Core 2 Duo P9500
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The Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 was a upper middle class dual core CPU for laptops, at the time of introduction. It is similar to the Core 2 Duo T9400 except for the lower TDP of 25 versus 35 Watt).
Due to the relatively high clock speed and 6MB Level 2 cache, the P9500 offers enough performance for most demanding games (in 2009) and applications.
The P9500 uses a Penryn (Montevina Update) core that features 2 integer units, 1 floating point unit, 1 load unit, and 1 store unit in a 14-stages long pipeline. Due to the Wide Dynamic Execution Technology, the core is able to simultaneously execute up to four instructions.
The integrated Enhanced Speedstep is able to downclock the core dynamically to save power (in idle mode).
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 2 Duo T6400
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 is an entry level dual core processor for cheap laptops. It is based on the Penryn core but offers only 2 MB level 2 cache and a slow clock speed of 2 GHz. The performance should be sufficient for office and other casual tasks but high level gaming and HD video editing for example could be limited by the CPU performance.
| Model | Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 | Apple M2 | Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 | ||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Penryn | Penryn | |||||||||||||||||
| Series | Intel Core 2 Duo | Apple M2 | Intel Core 2 Duo | ||||||||||||||||
| Series: Core 2 Duo Penryn |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Clock | 2530 MHz | 2424 - 3480 MHz | 2000 MHz | ||||||||||||||||
| FSB | 1066 | 800 | |||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 128 KB | 2 MB | |||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 6 MB | 20 MB | 2 MB | ||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 2 / 2 | 8 / 8 | 2 / 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 25 Watt | 20 Watt | 35 Watt | ||||||||||||||||
| Transistors | 410 Million | 20000 Million | |||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 45 nm | 5 nm | 45 nm | ||||||||||||||||
| Die Size | 107 mm2 | ||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 105 °C | 105 °C | |||||||||||||||||
| Socket | BGA479, PGA478 | PGA478 | |||||||||||||||||
| Features | Virtualization Technology (VT-x), Trusted Execution, Intel 64, Enhanced Speedstep, Execute Disable Bit | ARMv8 Instruction Set | MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST), Intel 64, XD bit (an NX bit implementation), IDA (Intel Dynamic Acceleration) | ||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | x86 | ARM | x86 | ||||||||||||||||
| $348 U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | ark.intel.com | www.apple.com | ark.intel.com | ||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 8 MB | ||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Apple M2 10-Core GPU ( - 1398 MHz) |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks Apple M2 → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 → 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
