Home > CPU Comparison > Core Ultra 5 125H or Apple M3: what's better?

Intel Core Ultra 5 125H vs Apple M3

52 out of 100
Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
VS
67 out of 100
Apple M3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
Apple M3

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 1.2 GHz Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with 14-cores against the 4.05 GHz Apple M3 with 8-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.
πŸ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between M3 and 125H
Advantages of Intel Core Ultra 5 125H
  • Supports up to 96 GB LPDDR5-7467 RAM
  • Has 6 more physical cores
  • Newer PCI Express version – 5.0
  • More than 10Β° C higher critical temperature
Advantages of Apple M3
  • More modern manufacturing process – 3 versus 7 nanometers
  • 41% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3009 vs 2136 points
  • Around 12.8 GB/s (14%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core Ultra 5 125H
vs
Apple M3

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) - 2341
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 Ultra 5 125H
2136
Apple M3 +41%
3009
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125H
10076
Apple M3 +17%
11815
File compression 1090 MB/sec 1260 MB/sec
Clang compilation 78.8 Klines/sec 94.7 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 273.9 pages/sec 264.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 321.4 Mpixels/sec 313.9 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 226.1 pages/sec 297 pages/sec
Background blur 42.4 images/sec 50.2 images/sec
Photo processing 103.8 images/sec 114.8 images/sec
Ray tracing 17.6 Mpixels/sec 12.9 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 823 & 438 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125H
3321
Apple M3 +42%
4707
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125H +5%
20044
Apple M3
19065
Integer math 67.6 GOps/sec 42.6 GOps/sec
Floating point math 49.4 GOps/sec 48.3 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 85M Primes/sec 231M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 25.9M Strings/sec 27.3M Strings/sec
Data encryption 13.5 GBytes/sec 11.5 GBytes/sec
Data compression 222.3 MBytes/sec 225 MBytes/sec
Physics 1359 Frames/sec 1867 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 12.9B Matrices/sec 10B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 2263 & 1563 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core Ultra 5 125H
137.14
Apple M3 +17%
160.35

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 25.3 PPW 35.6 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 359.9 PPW 590.8 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 715.9 PPW 953.3 PPW
Blender / Watt 4.9 PPW 8.02 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 Ultra 5 125H
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-07-07 (Dazzy G)Geekbench 6 CPU2266 / 11468
πŸ“˜ 2026-05-25 (SunrayVision)Geekbench 6 CPU2314 / 11107
πŸ“˜ 2026-05-25 (SunrayVision)Cinebench 2024103 / 763
πŸ“˜ 2026-04-05 (Fadaf)Geekbench 6 CPU2221 / 11456
πŸ“˜ 2025-11-30 (ilikememe)Geekbench 6 CPU2201 / 11410
Add View all (6)
Apple M3
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-22 (doannguyenmfs)Geekbench 6 CPU2991 / 11735
πŸ“˜ 2026-06-16 (darkknightSup)Geekbench 6 CPU2990 / 11498
Add View all (2)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core Ultra 5 125H and Apple M3

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released December 14, 2023 October 30, 2023
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Meteor Lake Apple M3
Model number 125H -
Integrated GPU Arc Graphics (7-Cores) Apple M3 GPU
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 5 225H - Apple M5 (10-Core)
Intel CPU rating (#138th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 4 4
P-Threads 8 4
Base Frequency (P) 1.2 GHz 4.05 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 4.5 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 10 4
E-Threads 10 4
Base Frequency (E) 0.7 GHz 2.75 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.6 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 14 8
Total Threads 18 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 12x 40x
L1 Cache 112K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) 16MB (shared)
L3 Cache 18MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 25 billions
Fabrication Process 7 nm 3 nm
TDP (PL1) 20-28 W (configurable) 20 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 115 W -
Socket FCBGA-2049 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 110Β°C 100Β°C
Laptop processors ranking (178th and 68th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Arc Graphics (7-Cores) Apple M3 GPU
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 500 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 2200 MHz 1380 MHz
Shading Units 896 1280
TMUs 56 80
ROPs 24 40
Execution Units 112 160
TGP 28 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core Ultra 5 125H +11%
3.9 TFLOPS
Apple M3
3.5 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M3 GPU (10-core) compared to Arc iGPU (7-Cores)

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-7467
- LPDDR5x-7467
- DDR5-5600		 - LPDDR5-6400
Max. Memory Size 96 GB 24 GB
Memory Channels 2 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 89.6 GB/s 102.4 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core Ultra 5 125H official page -
PCI Express Version 5.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 28 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
126 (63.3%)
73 (36.7%)
Total votes: 199

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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M3 or Intel Core Ultra 5 125H?
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