Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 12900H or M3 Max: what's better?

Intel Core i9 12900H vs Apple M3 Max

55 out of 100
Intel Core i9 12900H
VS
83 out of 100
Apple M3 Max
Intel Core i9 12900H
Apple M3 Max

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 2.5 GHz Intel Core i9 12900H with 14-cores against the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 Max with 16-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

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.
๐Ÿ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between Max and 12900H
Advantages of Apple M3 Max
  • More powerful Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core) integrated graphics: 14.1 vs 2.2 TFLOPS
  • More modern manufacturing process โ€“ 3 versus 10 nanometers
  • Supports up to 128 GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
  • Newer - released 1 year and 10 months later
  • 35% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3227 vs 2397 points
  • Has 2 more physical cores

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 12900H
vs
M3 Max

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i9 12900H
107
M3 Max +33%
142
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i9 12900H
984
M3 Max +73%
1698
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) - 5133
Cinebench Scores (157th and 51st place)
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)
Core i9 12900H
2397
M3 Max +35%
3227
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H
11964
M3 Max +77%
21167
File compression 898.1 MB/sec 2190 MB/sec
Clang compilation 97.6 Klines/sec 198.5 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 270 pages/sec 557.3 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 325.3 Mpixels/sec 648.9 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 248.3 pages/sec 309.1 pages/sec
Background blur 52.7 images/sec 68.9 images/sec
Photo processing 94.2 images/sec 183.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 23.8 Mpixels/sec 30.6 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] โ€“ 626 & 678 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 12900H
3644
M3 Max +31%
4780
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 12900H
26596
M3 Max +55%
41211
Integer math 91.3 GOps/sec 91.2 GOps/sec
Floating point math 66 GOps/sec 131.5 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 104M Primes/sec 573M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 34.4M Strings/sec 61.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 18 GBytes/sec 24.7 GBytes/sec
Data compression 308.2 MBytes/sec 530.4 MBytes/sec
Physics 1700 Frames/sec 4332 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 18.4B Matrices/sec 24.2B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] โ€“ 3998 & 409 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 12900H
210.35
M3 Max +92%
403.83

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 21.9 PPW 30.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 265.9 PPW 378 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 591 PPW 735.9 PPW
Blender / Watt 4.67 PPW 7.21 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
Intel Core i9 12900H
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-11-21 (Robert L)Cinebench 2024104 / 765
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-05-02 (Toksik Vegeta)Cinebench 2024107 / 984
Add View all (2)
Apple M3 Max
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-09-27 (JayZeppelin)Cinebench 2024142 / 1698
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-04-27 (Guest #1)Cinebench 2024141 / 1459
Add View all (2)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 12900H and Apple M3 Max

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released January 4, 2022 October 30, 2023
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Alder Lake Apple M3
Model number i9-12900H -
Integrated GPU Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core)
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 288V - Apple M5 Max (40-ัore GPU)
Intel CPU rating (#115th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 6 12
P-Threads 12 12
Base Frequency (P) 2.5 GHz 4.05 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 8 4
E-Threads 8 4
Base Frequency (E) 1.8 GHz 2.75 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.8 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 14 16
Total Threads 20 16
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 25x 40x
L1 Cache 80K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 1280K (per core) 32MB (shared)
L3 Cache 24MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 92 billions
Fabrication Process 10 nm 3 nm
TDP (PL1) 35-45 W (configurable) 56 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 115 W -
Socket BGA-1744 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100ยฐC 100ยฐC
Laptop processors ranking (152nd and 15th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel Iris Xe Graphics (96EU) Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core)
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 500 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1450 MHz 1380 MHz
Shading Units 768 5120
TMUs 48 320
ROPs 24 160
Execution Units 96 640
TGP 15 W 60 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 12900H
2.2 TFLOPS
M3 Max +541%
14.1 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M3 Max GPU (40-core) compared to Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96EU)

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR5-4800
- DDR4-3200
- LPDDR5-5200
- LPDDR4x-4267		 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 64 GB 128 GB
Memory Channels 2 32
Max. Memory Bandwidth - 409.6 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 12900H official page -
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 28 -

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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M3 Max or Intel Core i9 12900H?
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