A few days back Apple launched its new MacBooks, replacing the incumbent Intel processors with the M1 Max and Pro. We compared the former against Intel’s Tiger Lake-H flagship and found Apple’s in-house silicon to be faster as well as more efficient. With the next-gen Alder Lake family set to launch next month, that comparison is more or less redundant. Luckily, a Geekbench test of the top-end Alder Lake-P SKU has surfaced, giving us an idea of just how capable Intel’s hybrid core processors are.
The benchmark (courtesy of WCCFTech) shows the Core i9-12900HK beating the M1 Max by a notable margin across both single-threaded and multi-threaded metrics. Furthermore, the contemporary Intel and AMD mobile flagships are pretty much eviscerated by the 12900HK.
In the single-core benchmark, the Core i9-12900HK is 23% faster than the top AMD Cezanne part, with the Core i9-11980HK being 14% slower. Meanwhile, the Alder Lake mobility lead edges past the M1 Max by roughly 4%.
In the multi-threaded test, the Core i9-12900K extends its lead over the other processors. It’s a whopping 60% faster than the Ryzen 9 5980HX. The Core i9-11980HK does a bit better, trailing its successor by 34%. As for the M1 Max, it’s once again just 4% slower than Intel’s latest and greatest mobile SKU.
While one benchmark isn’t enough to draw a definitive conclusion, we can be sure that Intel will be returning to the PC market with a bang later this year. A potent IPC gain, paired with a hybrid core architecture should allow the chipmaker to balance single and multi-threaded performance with power efficiency. The first wave of Alder Lake parts is slated by the end of this month.
