Apple A16 Bionic vs Intel Core i9-12900KS

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Apple A16 Bionic CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Core i9-12900KS
Apple A16 Bionic Intel Core i9-12900KS

CPU comparison

In this CPU comparison, we compare the Apple A16 Bionic and the Intel Core i9-12900KS and use benchmarks to check which processor is faster.

We compare the Apple A16 Bionic 6 core processor released in Q3/2022 with the Intel Core i9-12900KS which has 16 CPU cores and was introduced in Q2/2022.
Apple A series (22) Family Intel Core i9 (78)
Apple A16 (1) CPU group Intel Core i 12000 (34)
16 Generation 12
A16 Architecture Alder Lake S
Mobile Segment Desktop / Server
Apple A15 Bionic (5-GPU) Predecessor --
Apple A17 Pro Successor Intel Core i9-13900KS

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple A16 Bionic is a 6 core processor with a clock frequency of 3.46 GHz. The processor can compute 6 threads at the same time. The Intel Core i9-12900KS clocks with 3.40 GHz (5.50 GHz), has 16 CPU cores and can calculate 24 threads in parallel.

Apple A16 Bionic Characteristic Intel Core i9-12900KS
6 Cores 16
6 Threads 24
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? Yes
3.46 GHz
2x Everest
A-Core 3.40 GHz (5.50 GHz)
8x Golden Cove
2.02 GHz
4x Sawtooth
B-Core 2.50 GHz (4.00 GHz)
8x Gracemont

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.

Apple A16 Bionic Characteristic Intel Core i9-12900KS
Apple Neural Engine AI hardware --
16 Neural cores @ 17 TOPS AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

Graphics (iGPU) integrated into the processor not only enable image output without having to rely on a dedicated graphics solution, but can also efficiently accelerate video playback.

Apple A16 (5 GPU Cores) GPU Intel UHD Graphics 770
1.34 GHz GPU frequency 0.30 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) 1.55 GHz
13 GPU Generation 11
4 nm Technology 10 nm
3 Max. displays 3
20 Compute units 32
640 Shader 256
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
6 GB Max. GPU Memory 64 GB
-- DirectX Version 12

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.

Apple A16 (5 GPU Cores) GPU Intel UHD Graphics 770
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 / Encode
No Codec AV1 Decode
Decode Codec AVC Decode / Encode
Decode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

Up to 6 GB of memory in a maximum of 1 memory channels is supported by the Apple A16 Bionic, while the Intel Core i9-12900KS supports a maximum of 128 GB of memory with a maximum memory bandwidth of 76.8 GB/s enabled.

Apple A16 Bionic Characteristic Intel Core i9-12900KS
LPDDR5-6400 Memory DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200
6 GB Max. Memory 128 GB
1 (Single Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
51.2 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 76.8 GB/s
No ECC Yes
20.00 MB L2 Cache 14.00 MB
24.00 MB L3 Cache 30.00 MB
-- PCIe version 5.0
-- PCIe lanes 20
-- PCIe Bandwidth 78.8 GB/s

Thermal Management

The Apple A16 Bionic has a TDP of 7.25 W. The TDP of the Intel Core i9-12900KS is 150 W. System integrators use the TDP of the processor as a guide when dimensioning the cooling solution.

Apple A16 Bionic Characteristic Intel Core i9-12900KS
7.25 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 150 W
-- TDP (PL2) 241 W
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. 90 °C

Technical details

The Apple A16 Bionic has 44.00 MB cache and is manufactured in 4 nm. The cache of Intel Core i9-12900KS is at 44.00 MB. The processor is manufactured in 10 nm.

Apple A16 Bionic Characteristic Intel Core i9-12900KS
4 nm Technology 10 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8.6-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
-- ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX2+
-- Socket LGA 1700
None Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
No AES-NI Yes
iOS Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Q3/2022 Release date Q2/2022
-- Release price 749 $
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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks
Apple A16 Bionic (90%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks
Apple A16 Bionic (34%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
1890 (91%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.50 GHz
2080 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
5465 (29%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
19010 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
2531 (89%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.50 GHz
2831 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
6299 (38%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
16455 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
Apple A16 (5 GPU Cores) @ 1.34 GHz
1789 (100%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
Intel UHD Graphics 770 @ 1.55 GHz
794 (44%)

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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.50 GHz
2082 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
27796 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.50 GHz
795 (100%)

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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
10744 (100%)

AnTuTu 9 Benchmark

The AnTuTu 9 benchmark is very well suited to measuring the performance of a smartphone. AnTuTu 9 is quite heavy on 3D graphics and can now also use the "Metal" graphics interface. In AnTuTu, memory and UX (user experience) are also tested by simulating browser and app usage. AnTuTu version 9 can compare any ARM CPU running on Android or iOS. Devices may not be directly comparable when benchmarked on different operating systems.

In the AnTuTu 9 benchmark, the single-core performance of a processor is only slightly weighted. The rating is made up of the multi-core performance of the processor, the speed of the working memory, and the performance of the internal graphics.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
947502 (100%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 3.40 GHz
0 (0%)

Blender 3.1 Benchmark

In the Blender Benchmark 3.1, the scenes "monster", "junkshop" and "classroom" are rendered and the time required by the system is measured. In our benchmark we test the CPU and not the graphics card. Blender 3.1 was presented as a standalone version in March 2022.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
399 (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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
44541 (100%)

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)

Blender is a free 3D graphics software for rendering (creating) 3D bodies, which can also be textured and animated in the software. The Blender benchmark creates predefined scenes and measures the time (s) required for the entire scene. The shorter the time required, the better. We selected bmw27 as the benchmark scene.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
87 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Single-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.50 GHz
294 (100%)

Cinebench R15 (Multi-Core)

Cinebench R15 is the successor of Cinebench 11.5 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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 5.20 GHz
4140 (100%)

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.
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
3.46 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
27,796 CB R23 MC @ 241 W
115 (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).
Apple A16 Bionic Apple A16 Bionic
6C 6T @ 3.46 GHz
17 (100%)
Intel Core i9-12900KS Intel Core i9-12900KS
16C 24T @ 3.40 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Apple A16 Bionic Intel Core i9-12900KS
Apple iPhone 14 Pro
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
Unknown

News and articles for the Apple A16 Bionic and the Intel Core i9-12900KS

MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ vs Apple A16 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ vs Apple A16 and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
Posted by Stefan on 2022-09-22
With the Dimensity 9000+, Mediatek presents the latest of its smartphone chips. The successor to the Mediatek Dimensity 9000 achieves higher CPU and GPU clock frequencies thanks to better binning. The CPU clock of the prime core (A core) increases from 3.0 to 3.2 GHz. And the ARM Mali-G710 MP10 GPU can now clock at 0.9 GHz (previously 0.85 GHz).

Both are a good improvement over the Dimensity 9000 in theory but the increase in performance should not usually be noticeable in practice. In the end, the overall performance of the Mediatek Dimensity 9000+ is impressive: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is beaten in Geekbench 5 in both the single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
What we know about the new Apple A16 Bionic in Apples iPhone 14
What we know about the new Apple A16 Bionic in Apples iPhone 14
Posted by Stefan on 2022-08-23
Every year Apple releases a new iPhone series and with the release of the series always the latest Apple A processor. This has become even more important in recent years, as it has also formed the basis for Apple's M processor series since 2020. The Apple M processors are based on the same core architecture as the Apple A processors, but have been significantly upgraded in many areas such as memory bandwith, amount of memory or cache.
Intel Core i9-13900 benchmark of engineering sample
Intel Core i9-13900 benchmark of engineering sample
Posted by Stefan on 2022-06-15
Intels 13th generation of the Intel Core i series (Raptor Lake) is about to be released and a lot of information is already known from the official side. This information includes e.g. the number of CPU cores, the expected increase in performance and the manufacturing technology of the new CPUs.

We compare the technical data of the Intel Core i9-13900 with its predecessor and look at benchmarks that have already been published.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - Cinebench R23 Benchmark projection
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - Cinebench R23 Benchmark projection
Posted by Stefan on 2022-06-10
We give you a preview of AMD's new Zen 4 desktop processors and calculate the performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X top model for the new AM5 socket. The performance data and other technical details come directly from the press kit that AMD released as part of its Financial Analyst Day on June 9, 2022.

Up to 15 percent more single-core performance and 35 percent more multi-core performance of the 16-core model are realistic !

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