AMD Ryzen 9 5900H vs Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)

Last updated: 2024-04-12

CPU comparison with benchmarks


AMD Ryzen 9 5900H		Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
CPU comparison AMD Ryzen 9 5900H or Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H has 8 cores with 16 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.60 GHz. Up to 64 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H was released in Q2/2021. The Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) has 12 cores with 12 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. The CPU supports up to 96 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) was released in Q1/2023.

AMD Ryzen 9 (35)	Family	Apple M series (25)
AMD Ryzen 5000H (11)	CPU group	Apple M2 (8)
4	Generation	2
Cezanne (Zen 3)	Architecture	M2
Mobile	Segment	Mobile
--	Predecessor	Apple M1 Max (32-GPU)
--	Successor	--

CPU Cores and Base Frequency The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H is a 8 core processor with a clock frequency of 3.10 GHz (4.60 GHz). The Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) has 12 CPU cores with a clock frequency of 0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz).
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Characteristic	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
8	Cores	12
16	Threads	12
normal	Core architecture	hybrid (big.LITTLE)
Yes	Hyperthreading	No
Yes	Overclocking ?	No
3.10 GHz (4.60 GHz)	A-Core	0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz) 8x Avalanche
--	B-Core	0.60 GHz (2.42 GHz) 4x Blizzard
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. Algorithms for ML improve their performance the more data they have collected via software. ML tasks can be processed up to 10,000 times faster than with a classic processor.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Characteristic	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
--	AI hardware	Apple Neural Engine
--	AI specifications	16 Neural cores @ 15.8 TOPS

Internal Graphics The integrated graphics unit of a processor is not only responsible for the pure image output on the system, but can also significantly increase the efficiency of the system with the support of modern video codecs.
AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Renoir)	GPU	Apple M2 Max (38 Core)
0.40 GHz	GPU frequency	0.45 GHz
1.75 GHz	GPU (Turbo)	1.40 GHz
9	GPU Generation	2
7 nm	Technology	5 nm
3	Max. displays	5
8	Compute units	608
512	Shader	4864
No	Hardware Raytracing	No
No	Frame Generation	No
8 GB	Max. GPU Memory	96 GB
12	DirectX Version	--

Hardware codec support A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.
AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Renoir)	GPU	Apple M2 Max (38 Core)
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit)	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit)	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec h264	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec VP9	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec VP8	Decode
No	Codec AV1	No
Decode / Encode	Codec AVC	Decode
Decode	Codec VC-1	Decode
Decode / Encode	Codec JPEG	Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H supports a maximum of 64 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) can connect up to 96 GB of memory in 4 memory channels.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Characteristic	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
LPDDR4-4266, DDR4-3200	Memory	LPDDR5-6400
64 GB	Max. Memory	96 GB
2 (Dual Channel)	Memory channels	4 (Quad Channel)
51.2 GB/s	Max. Bandwidth	409.6 GB/s
Yes	ECC	No
4.00 MB	L2 Cache	36.00 MB
16.00 MB	L3 Cache	--
3.0	PCIe version	4.0
12	PCIe lanes	32
11.8 GB/s	PCIe Bandwidth	63.0 GB/s
Thermal Management The TDP (Thermal Design Power) of a processor specifies the required cooling solution. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H has a TDP of 45 W, that of the Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) is 40 W.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Characteristic	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
45 W	TDP (PL1 / PBP)	40 W
--	TDP (PL2)	--
54 W	TDP up	--
--	TDP down	--
95 °C	Tjunction max.	100 °C
Technical details The AMD Ryzen 9 5900H has a 20.00 MB cache, while the Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) cache has a total of 36.00 MB.
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Characteristic	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
7 nm	Technology	5 nm
Chiplet	Chip design	Chiplet
x86-64 (64 bit)	Instruction set (ISA)	Armv8.5-A (64 bit)
SSE4a, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, FMA3	ISA extensions	Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
AM4 (PGA 1331)	Socket	--
AMD-V, SVM	Virtualization	Apple Virtualization Framework
Yes	AES-NI	Yes
Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux	Operating systems	macOS, iPadOS
Q2/2021	Release date	Q1/2023
--	Release price	--

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AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz (4.60 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save! Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save!

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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks

AMD Ryzen 9 5900H (83%)

Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) (100%)

⌀ Multi core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks

AMD Ryzen 9 5900H (74%)

Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	1478 (87%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	1695 (100%)

Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R23 is the successor of Cinebench R20 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	12892 (87%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	14855 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	1488 (79%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	1874 (100%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	8449 (54%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	15506 (100%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Renoir) @ 1.75 GHz	1792 (13%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) Apple M2 Max (38 Core) @ 1.40 GHz	13490 (100%)

Estimated results for PassMark CPU Mark

Some of the CPUs listed below have been benchmarked by CPU-monkey. However the majority of CPUs have not been tested and the results have been estimated by a CPU-monkey’s secret proprietary formula. As such they do not accurately reflect the actual Passmark CPU mark values and are not endorsed by PassMark Software Pty Ltd.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	21400 (81%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	26310 (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Single-Core)

The Cinebench 2024 benchmark is based on the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxon's 3D program Cinema 4D. The benchmark runs are each 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	121 (100%)

Cinebench 2024 (Multi-Core)

The Multi-Core test of the Cinebench 2024 benchmark uses all cpu cores to render using the Redshift rendering engine, which is also used in Maxons Cinema 4D. The benchmark run is 10 minutes long to test whether the processor is limited by its heat generation.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	1025 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	2689 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	14207 (100%)

Cinebench R20 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 4.60 GHz	578 (100%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	0 (0%)

Cinebench R20 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R20 is the successor of Cinebench R15 and is also based on the Cinema 4 Suite. Cinema 4 is a worldwide used software to create 3D forms. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	4998 (100%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 3.50 GHz	0 (0%)

CPU performance per watt (efficiency)

Efficiency of the processor under full load in the Cinebench R23 (multi-core) benchmark. The benchmark result is divided by the average energy required (CPU package power in watts). The higher the value, the more efficient the CPU is under full load.


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 3.10 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 14,855 CB R23 MC @ 40 W	371 (100%)

Performance for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)

Processors with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors. The performance is given in the number (trillions) of arithmetic operations per second (TOPS).


	AMD Ryzen 9 5900H 8C 16T @ 3.10 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) 12C 12T @ 0.66 GHz	15.8 (100%)

Devices using this processor
AMD Ryzen 9 5900H	Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
Unknown	Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2023)

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