Home > CPU Comparison > Apple M1 or Ryzen 5 5500U: what's better?

Apple M1 vs AMD Ryzen 5 5500U

53 out of 100
Apple M1
VS
38 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 5 5500U
Apple M1
AMD Ryzen 5 5500U

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 3.2 GHz Apple M1 with 8-cores against the 2.1 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with 6-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments (5)

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
Integrated Graphics
iGPU capabilities for gaming and 3D-intensive tasks
DeviceFacts Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
πŸ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 5500U and M1
Advantages of Apple M1
  • More powerful Apple M1 GPU integrated graphics: 2.6 vs 1.6 TFLOPS
  • 58% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2410 vs 1526 points
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 7 nanometers
  • Has 2 more physical cores
  • Newer PCI Express version – 4.0
Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 5500U
  • Supports up to 32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Apple M1
vs
Ryzen 5 5500U

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Apple M1 +62%
110
Ryzen 5 5500U
68
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Apple M1 +30%
525
Ryzen 5 5500U
404
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Apple M1 +58%
2410
Ryzen 5 5500U
1526
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Apple M1 +42%
8547
Ryzen 5 5500U
6005
File compression 941 MB/sec 504.2 MB/sec
Clang compilation 68.2 Klines/sec 32.5 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 192.4 pages/sec 103.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 211.9 Mpixels/sec 151.5 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 250.8 pages/sec 124.6 pages/sec
Background blur 34.1 images/sec 27.2 images/sec
Photo processing 60.9 images/sec 49.8 images/sec
Ray tracing 9.74 Mpixels/sec 8.97 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 760 & 599 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Apple M1 +54%
3673
Ryzen 5 5500U
2390
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Apple M1 +12%
14123
Ryzen 5 5500U
12609
Integer math 33.2 GOps/sec 44.4 GOps/sec
Floating point math 35.5 GOps/sec 25.6 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 141M Primes/sec 26M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 21M Strings/sec 18.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 8.5 GBytes/sec 10.2 GBytes/sec
Data compression 168 MBytes/sec 171.4 MBytes/sec
Physics 1359 Frames/sec 526 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 7B Matrices/sec 10.7B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 10702 & 6029 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Apple M1 +4%
95.27
Ryzen 5 5500U
91.95

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 37.5 PPW 16.2 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 610.5 PPW 240.2 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 1008.8 PPW 504.4 PPW
Blender / Watt 6.81 PPW 3.68 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Apple M1
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-25 -> op1Geekbench 6 CPU2273 / 7967
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-24 -> op1Geekbench 6 CPU2420 / 8793
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-06 (gaR)Geekbench 6 CPU2396 / 8763
πŸ“˜ 2025-04-11 (Ario)Geekbench 6 CPU2395 / 8820
πŸ“˜ 2025-04-11 (Ario)Cinebench 2024110 / 465
Add View all (8)
AMD Ryzen 5 5500U
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2025-08-11 (Akhil)Cinebench 202468 / 404
πŸ“˜ 2025-06-06 (DON'T_SYBAU ❀️)Geekbench 6 CPU1515 / 6409
πŸ“˜ 2025-06-04 (Micro_review)Geekbench 6 CPU1526 / 6005
πŸ“˜ 2025-05-14 (Josh Passed)Cinebench 202469 / 315
πŸ“˜ 2024-05-30 (Wildan)Cinebench 202468 / 367
Add View all (5)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Apple M1 and AMD Ryzen 5 5500U

General

Vendor Apple Amd
Released November 20, 2020 January 12, 2021
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set ARMv8 x86-64
Codename Apple M1 Zen 2 (Lucienne)
Integrated GPU Apple M1 GPU Radeon RX Vega 7
Rival Equivalent - - Intel Core i5 1135G7
Successor - Apple M5 (10-Core) - AMD Ryzen 5 7520U
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#165th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 6
P-Threads 4 12
Base Frequency (P) 3.2 GHz 2.1 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) - 4 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 -
E-Threads 4 -
Base Frequency (E) 2.1 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 8 6
Total Threads 8 12
Bus Frequency - 100 MHz
Multiplier - 21x
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 64K (per core)
L2 Cache 12MB (shared) 512K (per core)
L3 Cache - 8MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors 16 billions -
Fabrication Process 5 nm 7 nm
TDP (PL1) 14 W 10-25 W (configurable)
Socket Apple M-Socket FP6
Peak Temperature - 105Β°C

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Apple M1 GPU Radeon RX Vega 7
GPU Base Clock 450 MHz 300 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1278 MHz 1800 MHz
Shading Units 1024 448
TMUs 64 28
ROPs 32 8
Execution Units 128 7
TGP 15 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Apple M1 +63%
2.6 TFLOPS
Ryzen 5 5500U
1.6 TFLOPS
More info: Radeon RX Vega 7 compared to Apple M1 GPU (8-core)

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR4X-4266 - DDR4-3200
- LPDDR4-4266
Max. Memory Size 16 GB 32 GB
Memory Channels 8 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth 68.25 GB/s -
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site - AMD Ryzen 5 5500U official page
PCI Express Version 4.0 3.0
PCI Express Lanes - 12

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
83 (52.2%)
76 (47.8%)
Total votes: 159

Competitors

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2. AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (5)
3. AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs AMD Ryzen 3 7320U (1)
4. AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs AMD Ryzen 5 7520U (7)
5. AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs Intel Core i3 1215U (16)
6. Apple M1 vs Apple M3 Pro
7. Apple M1 vs Apple M4 Pro (12-Core)
8. Apple M1 vs Apple M2 (8)
9. Apple M1 vs Apple M3
10. Apple M1 vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (11)
Compare other CPUs (460+)

Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 5 5500U or Apple M1?
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Avatar
fish June 28, 2023 at 03:18 PM
Who hell bot voted for the M1? We know M1 is good but cmon man.
+12 Reply
Avatar
Shaurya singh March 18, 2024 at 07:16 AM
Yes, the 5500u is significantly cheaper than the M1, making it great value for money.
0 Reply
Avatar
John February 4, 2022 at 11:47 AM
Actually, it depends because you can find Ryzen 5 5500U in 650 to 700$ laptops but the m1 chip can only be found in the latest MacBooks which are more than 1000$. So if we compare a 650$ laptop's performance vs a thousand dollar one Ryzen does not lack behind as much as you think plus playing games on a mac is a nightmare while with pcs it's easy and due to its x86 chip you can run many apps natively. So the conclusion is if you find a Ryzen 5 5500 U laptop under 700$ and has a nice keyboard you should go for it but if you have a more professional workload and the apps you use can be run with arm and mac I'll suggest you go with the m1. I hope you found it useful may the good Lord bless you.!
+33 Reply
Avatar
Dark April 27, 2022 at 12:54 PM
Though superior finishing and that magical battery backup are worth it.
0 Reply
Avatar
alevaz October 13, 2022 at 06:55 PM
Dark, "Though superior finishing ..." I am not looking at it, I need to play my games, listen to music while I work - "And that magical battery backup is worth it." ... which is of no use if I can't work with it. That is just IMHO. I also think that Apple will not go back to using someone else's chip for a long time. Vertical integration is what works for them. Eventually, the Mx series will have support for everything ( .. except games.). But at the moment an m1 as a new chip is practically useless --
+5 Reply
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