The latest Intel Core i9 chip performs better than the Apple Silicon M1 Max processor, but consumes significantly more.
One of the main reasons Apple decided to ditch Intel processors and move to its own chips is because the Cupertino-based company didn’t want to be hung up on a US foundry’s development schedule. Especially since in recent years, Intel has had to deal with a number of delays, which, in turn, have affected the update schedule for Apple and its devices.
Latest Intel Core i9 chip outperforms Apple Silicon M1 Max processor
With the Apple Silicon M1 line of chips, we’ve seen in a number of tests how they perform and how they outperform Intel’s creations, even outperforming them quite easily. But Intel doesn’t seem to have had its last word. Indeed, according to recent Geekbench 5 tests, it looks like the company’s latest Core i9 processor performs better than Apple’s M1 Max chip.
but consumes much more
The Core i9-12900HK scored 12,707 on the Un multi-core test, while the M1 Max settled in with 12,244, a 4% difference. At the same time, the scores obtained on these tests tell, so to speak, only part of the story. According to PCWorld’s Cinebench R23 benchmarks, the Intel CPU was consistently running at around 100W with a peak at around 140W.
On the other hand, in the same test done by AnandTech, the Apple Silicon M1 Max chip showed only 40W, which is less than half the consumption of the Intel chip. This means that while Intel processors are indeed (slightly) faster, they consume significantly more power than Apple chips. This directly affects the autonomy if they are built into laptops, or the electricity bill if they are built into desktop computers.
This does not mean that this Intel processor is not good, it has its own advantages and disadvantages with very different use cases, but this aspect should be considered.