Intel Core i9-13900K vs Apple M3 Max 14-Core vs Intel Core i5-13500T

Intel Core i9-13900K

The Intel Core i9-13900K is a fast high-end desktop processor of the Raptor Lake series. It includes a hybrid architecture for the CPU cores with combined 24 cores and 32 threads. Eight fast Raptor Cove performance cores (P-cores) with HyperThreading and a clock speed of 3 - 5.8 GHz and sixteen Gracemont efficiency cores without HyperThreading and a clock speed of 2.2 - 4.3 GHz.

Thanks to the faster P-cores and more E-cores, the i9-13900K is significantly faster than the old i9-12900K (especially in multi-threaded workloads). Compared to the Raphael AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (Zen 4), the 13900K offers a slightly higher multi-thread-performance and a slightly lower single core performance. In games, the Intel CPU is currently the clear winner (at the time of announcement of the 7950X).

The 13900K is rated at 125 Watt TDP base power (PL1) and 253 Watt Turbo Power (PL2) and therefore slightly higher than the old i9-12900K.

Apple M3 Max 14-Core

The Apple M3 Max 14 core CPU is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple for notebooks that was introduced towards the end of 2023. It integrates a new 14-core CPU with 10 performance cores with up to 4.06 GHz and 4 efficiency cores with 2.8 GHz. There is also a more powerful 16-core variant with 40 GPU cores.

Thanks to the higher clock rates and architectural improvements, the processor performance is also significantly better than the M2 Max in benchmarks and can keep up with the fastest mobile CPUs.

The M3 also integrates a new graphics card with dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration via hardware. In the cheaper model, 30 of the chip's 40 cores are used and support up to 5 displays simultaneously (internal and 4 external).

GPU and CPU can jointly access the shared memory on the package (unified memory). This is available in 36 and 96 GB variants and offers 400 GB/s maximum bandwidth (512 bit bus).

The integrated 16-core Neural Engine has also been revised and now offers 18 TOPS peak performance (compared to 15.8 TOPS in the M2 but 35 TOPS in the new A17 Pro). The video engine now also supports AV1 decoding in hardware. H.264, HEVC and ProRes (RAW) can still be decoded and encoded. Like its predecessor, the Max chip offers two video engines and can therefore encode and decode two streams simultaneously.

Unfortunately, the integrated WLAN only continues to support WiFi 6E (no WiFi 7), unlike the small M3 SoC thunderbolt 4 is also supported (max 40 Gbit/s).

The chip is manufactured in the current 3nm process (N3B) at TSMC and contains 92 billion transistors (+37% vs. Apple M2 Max).

Intel Core i5-13500T

The Intel Core i5-13500T is a fast and very economical desktop processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, which was introduced in October 2022. The processor offers a base clock of 1.6 GHz and reaches up to 4.6 GHz in Turbo. The hybrid CPU architecture, which was introduced with Alder Lake, also benefits the Raptor Lake processors. The suffix T stands for a particularly economical CPU model, and with a TDP of just 35 watts (PL1 = 35 watts), these processors are ideally suited for small, compact systems.

Performance

The low power consumption ultimately results in slightly lower performance compared to the Intel Core i5-13500. Depending on how the PL2 (92 watts) is defined, there may be noticeable differences in multi-core performance. Compared to the Intel Core i5-12500T, the Intel Core i5-13500T is superior due to the higher number of physical computing units.

Graphics unit

Like the Intel Core i5-12500T, the Intel Core i5-13500T offers an integrated graphics unit. The Intel Iris Xe architecture continues to serve as the basis. In terms of performance, however, not much has changed with the new Intel UHD Graphics 770. The iGPU of the Intel Core i5-13500T also clocks 100 MHz higher, but this does not make a noticeable difference in everyday use.

Power consumption

The TDP of the Intel Core i5-13500T is 35 watts, with the option to increase this to up to 92 watts in Turbo mode. Compared to the Intel Core i5-12500T (PL2 = 74 watts), the maximum possible energy requirement increases slightly.