Home > CPU Comparison > Core Ultra 5 125U or Apple M1: what's better?

Intel Core Ultra 5 125U vs Apple M1

47 out of 100
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U
VS
53 out of 100
Apple M1
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U
Apple M1

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 1.3 GHz Intel Core Ultra 5 125U with 12-cores against the 3.2 GHz Apple M1 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.
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Key Differences

What are the key differences between M1 and 125U
Advantages of Intel Core Ultra 5 125U
  • Supports up to 96 GB LPDDR5-7467 RAM
  • Newer - released 3 years and 1 month later
  • Has 4 more physical cores
  • Around 21.35 GB/s (31%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
Advantages of Apple M1
  • More modern manufacturing process – 5 versus 7 nanometers
  • More powerful Apple M1 GPU integrated graphics: 2.6 vs 1.9 TFLOPS
  • 14% faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2410 vs 2113 points

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core Ultra 5 125U
vs
Apple M1

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
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 125U
2113
Apple M1 +14%
2410
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125U +7%
9136
Apple M1
8547
File compression 958.1 MB/sec 941 MB/sec
Clang compilation 65.6 Klines/sec 68.2 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 223.8 pages/sec 192.4 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 243.9 Mpixels/sec 211.9 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 213.2 pages/sec 250.8 pages/sec
Background blur 40.3 images/sec 34.1 images/sec
Photo processing 93.4 images/sec 60.9 images/sec
Ray tracing 13.8 Mpixels/sec 9.74 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 18 & 760 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125U
3241
Apple M1 +13%
3673
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core Ultra 5 125U +19%
16758
Apple M1
14123
Integer math 55.8 GOps/sec 33.2 GOps/sec
Floating point math 40.2 GOps/sec 35.5 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 64M Primes/sec 141M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 20.8M Strings/sec 21M Strings/sec
Data encryption 11.7 GBytes/sec 8.5 GBytes/sec
Data compression 188.5 MBytes/sec 168 MBytes/sec
Physics 1063 Frames/sec 1359 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 10.7B Matrices/sec 7B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 2202 & 10702 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core Ultra 5 125U +15%
109.62
Apple M1
95.27

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 41.1 PPW 37.5 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 761.3 PPW 610.5 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 1396.5 PPW 1008.8 PPW
Blender / Watt 9.14 PPW 6.81 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 125U
No benchmark results yet
Add
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)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core Ultra 5 125U and Apple M1

General

Vendor Intel Apple
Released December 14, 2023 November 20, 2020
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 ARMv8
Codename Meteor Lake Apple M1
Model number 125U -
Integrated GPU Arc Graphics (4-Cores) Apple M1 GPU
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 5 8540U -
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 5 225U - Apple M5 (10-Core)
Intel CPU rating (#176th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 2 4
P-Threads 4 4
Base Frequency (P) 1.3 GHz 3.2 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 4.3 GHz -
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 10 4
E-Threads 10 4
Base Frequency (E) 0.8 GHz 2.1 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.6 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 12 8
Total Threads 14 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz -
Multiplier 13x -
L1 Cache 112K (per core) 192K (per core)
L2 Cache 2MB (per core) 12MB (shared)
L3 Cache 12MB (shared) -
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 16 billions
Fabrication Process 7 nm 5 nm
TDP (PL1) 12 W 14 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 57 W -
Socket FCBGA-2049 Apple M-Socket
Peak Temperature 110Β°C -

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Arc Graphics (4-Cores) Apple M1 GPU
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 450 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1850 MHz 1278 MHz
Shading Units 512 1024
TMUs 32 64
ROPs 16 32
Execution Units 64 128
TGP 14 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core Ultra 5 125U
1.9 TFLOPS
Apple M1 +37%
2.6 TFLOPS
More info: Apple M1 GPU (8-core) compared to Arc iGPU (4-Cores)

Memory Support

Memory Types - LPDDR5-7467
- LPDDR5x-7467
- DDR5-5600		 - LPDDR4X-4266
Max. Memory Size 96 GB 16 GB
Memory Channels 2 8
Max. Memory Bandwidth 89.6 GB/s 68.25 GB/s
ECC Support No No

Misc

Official Site Intel Core Ultra 5 125U official page -
PCI Express Version 4.0 4.0
PCI Express Lanes 20 -

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
12 (57.1%)
9 (42.9%)
Total votes: 21

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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: Apple M1 or Intel Core Ultra 5 125U?
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