Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 9900K or M1 Pro: what's better?

Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M1 Pro

41 out of 100
Intel Core i9 9900K
VS
55 out of 100
Apple M1 Pro
Intel Core i9 9900K
Apple M1 Pro

We compared two CPUs: the 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9 9900K (desktop) with 8-cores against the 3.2 GHz Apple M1 Pro (laptop) with 10-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
The "iGPU" and "Power Efficiency" have a minor impact on the DeviceFacts Score for desktop CPU.
DeviceFacts Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
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Value for money (Beta)

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Currency
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Key Differences

What are the key differences between Pro and 9900K
Advantages of Intel Core i9 9900K
  • Supports up to 128 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
  • Unlocked multiplier
Advantages of Apple M1 Pro
  • More powerful Apple M1 Pro GPU (16-core) integrated graphics: 5.3 vs 0.5 TFLOPS
  • Around 163.2 GB/s (392%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 14 nanometers
  • Newer - released 3 years and 1 month later
  • 44% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2328 vs 1621 points
  • Has 2 more physical cores

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 9900K
vs
M1 Pro

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i9 9900K
79
M1 Pro +38%
109
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i9 9900K
706
M1 Pro +13%
796
Cinebench 2026 (Single) - 444
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) - 3334
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 9900K
1621
M1 Pro +44%
2328
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K
8151
M1 Pro +26%
10305
File compression 545.7 MB/sec 1230 MB/sec
Clang compilation 67.7 Klines/sec 82.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 175.1 pages/sec 249.1 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 275.6 Mpixels/sec 271.3 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 159 pages/sec 246.4 pages/sec
Background blur 40.4 images/sec 36.9 images/sec
Photo processing 68.6 images/sec 102.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 14.5 Mpixels/sec 10.7 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 610 & 593 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 9900K
2911
M1 Pro +30%
3795
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K
18059
M1 Pro +21%
21934
Integer math 66.1 GOps/sec 45.6 GOps/sec
Floating point math 41 GOps/sec 64 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 46M Primes/sec 272M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 36.1M Strings/sec 32.5M Strings/sec
Data encryption 6.3 GBytes/sec 12.2 GBytes/sec
Data compression 282.6 MBytes/sec 272.2 MBytes/sec
Physics 929 Frames/sec 2696 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 19B Matrices/sec 12.6B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 17571 & 2437 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 9900K
178.22
M1 Pro +5%
186.87

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 7.4 PPW 26.5 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 85.8 PPW 343.5 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 190.1 PPW 731.1 PPW
Blender / Watt 1.88 PPW 6.23 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 9900K
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-01-01 (Mr Scare)Cinebench 202479 / 662
πŸ“˜ 2025-08-09 (EndOfTheWorld77)Cinebench 202478 / 591
πŸ“˜ 2024-03-28 (Gribbstar)Cinebench 202479 / 706
Add View all (3)
Apple M1 Pro
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-27 (bbffx)Geekbench 6 CPU2450 / 12944
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-27 (bbffx)Cinebench 2026444 / 3334
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-27 (bbffx)Cinebench 2024115 / 857
πŸ“˜ 2025-02-23 (anon121434)Cinebench 202499 / 682
πŸ“˜ 2025-02-19 (serhii)Cinebench 2024109 / 796
Add View all (7)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 9900K and Apple M1 Pro

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released October 8, 2018 October 18, 2021
Type Desktop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Coffee Lake Apple M1
Model number i9-9900K -
Integrated GPU UHD Graphics 630 Apple M1 Pro GPU (16-core)
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 285K - Apple M5 Pro (18-Core)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 8 8
P-Threads 16 8
Base Frequency (P) 3.6 GHz 3.2 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores - 2
E-Threads - 2
Base Frequency (E) - 2.1 GHz
Total
Total Cores 8 10
Total Threads 16 10
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 36x -
Bus Bandwidth 8 GT/s -
L1 Cache 64K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 256K (per core) 24MB (shared)
L3 Cache 16MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier Yes No

Package

Transistors - 33.7 billions
Fabrication Process 14 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 95 W 30 W
Socket LGA-1151 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100Β°C -
Desktop CPU ranking (#145th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 630 Apple M1 Pro GPU (16-core)
GPU Base Clock 350 MHz 450 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1200 MHz 1296 MHz
Shading Units 192 2048
TMUs 24 128
ROPs 3 64
Execution Units 24 256
TGP 15 W 30 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 9900K
0.5 TFLOPS
M1 Pro +960%
5.3 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M1 Pro GPU (16-core) compared to UHD Graphics 630

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR4-2666 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 128 GB 32 GB
Memory Channels 2 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth 41.6 GB/s 204.8 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 9900K official page -
PCI Express Version 3.0 -
PCI Express Lanes 16 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
39 (41.1%)
56 (58.9%)
Total votes: 95

Competitors

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6. Apple M1 Pro vs Apple M4 (10-Core) (7)
7. Apple M1 Pro vs Apple M3 Pro (10)
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9. Apple M1 Pro vs Apple M2 (1)
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M1 Pro or Intel Core i9 9900K?
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