Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 9900K or Apple M2: what's better?

Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M2

41 out of 100
Intel Core i9 9900K
VS
55 out of 100
Apple M2
Intel Core i9 9900K
Apple M2

We compared two 8-core CPUs: the 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9 9900K (desktop) against the 3.5 GHz Apple M2 (laptop). 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 M2 and 9900K
Advantages of Intel Core i9 9900K
  • Supports up to 128 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
  • Unlocked multiplier
Advantages of Apple M2
  • More powerful Apple M2 GPU integrated graphics: 2.9 vs 0.5 TFLOPS
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 14 nanometers
  • Around 60.8 GB/s (146%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • Newer - released 3 years and 9 months later
  • 60% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2589 vs 1621 points
  • Newer PCI Express version – 4.0

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 9900K
vs
Apple M2

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Core i9 9900K
79
Apple M2 +58%
125
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Core i9 9900K +21%
706
Apple M2
582
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
Apple M2 +60%
2589
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K
8151
Apple M2 +24%
10122
File compression 545.7 MB/sec 1130 MB/sec
Clang compilation 67.7 Klines/sec 80.4 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 175.1 pages/sec 235.3 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 275.6 Mpixels/sec 266.1 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 159 pages/sec 257.4 pages/sec
Background blur 40.4 images/sec 42.1 images/sec
Photo processing 68.6 images/sec 107 images/sec
Ray tracing 14.5 Mpixels/sec 10.5 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 610 & 465 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 9900K
2911
Apple M2 +33%
3883
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K +15%
18059
Apple M2
15651
Integer math 66.1 GOps/sec 37 GOps/sec
Floating point math 41 GOps/sec 37.5 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 46M Primes/sec 174M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 36.1M Strings/sec 23.7M Strings/sec
Data encryption 6.3 GBytes/sec 9.5 GBytes/sec
Data compression 282.6 MBytes/sec 185.8 MBytes/sec
Physics 929 Frames/sec 1667 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 19B Matrices/sec 7.8B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 17571 & 4611 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 9900K +63%
178.22
Apple M2
109.19

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 7.4 PPW 32.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 85.8 PPW 562.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 190.1 PPW 869.5 PPW
Blender / Watt 1.88 PPW 6.07 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 M2
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-03-14 (T)Geekbench 6 CPU2647 / 10245
πŸ“˜ 2026-01-05 (AR)Geekbench 6 CPU2655 / 10211
πŸ“˜ 2025-10-24 (Shivam)Geekbench 6 CPU2619 / 9900
Add View all (3)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 9900K and Apple M2

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released October 8, 2018 June 6, 2022
Type Desktop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Coffee Lake Apple M2
Model number i9-9900K -
Integrated GPU UHD Graphics 630 Apple M2 GPU
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 285K - Apple M5 (10-Core)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 8 4
P-Threads 16 4
Base Frequency (P) 3.6 GHz 3.5 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores - 4
E-Threads - 4
Base Frequency (E) - 2.4 GHz
Total
Total Cores 8 8
Total Threads 16 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 36x -
Bus Bandwidth 8 GT/s -
L1 Cache 64K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 256K (per core) 16MB (shared)
L3 Cache 16MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier Yes No

Package

Transistors - 20 billions
Fabrication Process 14 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 95 W 18 W
Socket LGA-1151 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 100Β°C -
Desktop CPU ranking (#145th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 630 Apple M2 GPU
GPU Base Clock 350 MHz 500 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1200 MHz 1398 MHz
Shading Units 192 1024
TMUs 24 64
ROPs 3 32
Execution Units 24 128
TGP 15 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 9900K
0.5 TFLOPS
Apple M2 +480%
2.9 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M2 GPU (8-core) compared to UHD Graphics 630

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR4-2666 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 128 GB 24 GB
Memory Channels 2 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 41.6 GB/s 102.4 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 9900K official page -
PCI Express Version 3.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 16 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
7 (50%)
7 (50%)
Total votes: 14

Competitors

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5. Apple M2 vs Apple M3
6. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M1 (1)
7. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Intel Core i9 14900K
8. Intel Core i9 9900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
9. Intel Core i9 9900K vs AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
10. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M3
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M2 or Intel Core i9 9900K?
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