Intel Core i9-9900K vs Apple A12X Bionic

Intel Core i9-9900K

The Intel Core i9-9900K is a high end desktop processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. At the time of announcement in late 2018, the 9900K is the fastest Coffee Lake CPU and offers an open multiplicator for easy overclocking. The CPU integrates 8 cores (16 threads) clocked at 3.6 - 5 GHz and it needs a new Z390 based mainboard.

Thanks to the two additional cores, the performance in multi-threaded applications is up to 25 % faster than the older Core i7-8700K. The single thread performance is only slightly faster due to the higher clock speeds. As a high end desktop CPU, the i9-9900K is suited even for very demanding applications and perfect for 3D gaming.

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 graphics card is clocked at up to 1.2 GHz and offers no advantage compared to previous generations. As it is a very low end GPU, only some low demanding games like Hearthstone can be played with it (see GPU page for benchmarks).

Intel specifies the TDP at 95 Watt, so if the CPU is used in laptops a big and chunky cooling system is needed to avoid throttling and lower clock speeds under sustained loads. When overclocking the CPU, the power consumption can easily rise up to 200 Watt and higher.

Apple A12X Bionic

The Apple A12X Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPad Pro 11 and 12.5-inch from 2018. It offers 8 cores divided in four performance cores and four power efficiency cores (up from the 6 cores in the A12 of the iPhone XS). Compared to the previous A10X in the old iPad Pro models, Apple advertises up to 95% higher performance of the CPU cores.

The chip also includes a new GPU with 7 cores, the M12 Motion co-processor and a Neural Engine with 8 cores for up to 5 trillion operations per second.

With 10 billion transistors (A12 6.9 billion), the A12X Bionic is a big chip especially compared to the Snapdragon 835 (3 Billion) or a Skylake desktop quad-core Soc (1.75 Billion).