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Apple M1 vs Intel Core i9-9960X

Last updated: 2026-06-06

Table of Contents

Summary
Benchmarks
Specifications
User Reviews
Popular Comparisons

Summary

Benchmarks

Performance Overview
Average performance across multiple benchmarks

Single-core performance

Rank 1 - 100 %

Apple M1

Rank 2 - 65 %

Intel Core i9-9960X

Multi-core performance

Rank 2 - 60 %

Apple M1

Rank 1 - 100 %

Intel Core i9-9960X

Geekbench 6 Single-Core
Single-core performance

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

2,369

16C / 32T · 4.50 GHz

1,459

Geekbench 6 Multi-Core
Multi-core performance

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

8,576

16C / 32T · 4.10 GHz

11,020

Geekbench 5, 64bit Single-Core
Single-core performance

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

1,742

16C / 32T · 4.50 GHz

1,174

Geekbench 5, 64bit Multi-Core
Multi-core performance

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

7,650

16C / 32T · 4.10 GHz

14,314

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)
Multi-core performance

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

314.0 s

16C / 32T · 4.10 GHz

104.3 s

More benchmarks

Cinebench 2026 (ST)
218 entries

Cinebench 2026 (MC)
219 entries

Cinebench 2024 (SC)
427 entries

Cinebench 2024 (MC)
422 entries

Cinebench R23 (SC)
690 entries

Cinebench R23 (MC)
665 entries

Geekbench 6 (SC)
1,989 entries

Geekbench 6 (MC)
1,927 entries

Cinebench R20 (SC)
666 entries

Geekbench 5 (SC)
2,512 entries

Cinebench R20 (MC)
615 entries

Geekbench 5 (MC)
2,483 entries

FP32 SP (iGPU)
2,219 entries

Blender 3.1 Benchmark
213 entries

PassMark CPU-Mark
2,504 entries

Blender 2.81 (bmw27)
190 entries

V-Ray CPU-Render
251 entries

Cinebench R15 (SC)
1,113 entries

Cinebench R15 (MC)
1,110 entries

CPU performance per watt (efficiency)
140 entries

AI performance (NPU)
218 entries

Specifications

At a glance

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
Family	Apple M series (38)	Intel Core i9 (81)
CPU group	Apple M1 (9)	Intel Core i 9000X (8)
Architecture	M1	Skylake X Refresh
Technology	5 nm	14 nm
Segment	Notebook	Desktop
Socket		LGA 2066
Predecessor		Intel Core i9-7960X
Successor	Apple M2

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
CPU Cores / Threads	8 / 8	16 / 32
Hyperthreading / SMT	✗	✓
Core architecture	hybrid (big.LITTLE)	normal
Core Cluster 1:	4x Firestorm 0.60 - 3.20 GHz	16x 3.10 - 4.50 GHz
Core Cluster 2:	4x Icestorm 0.60 - 2.06 GHz
L2-Cache	16.00 MB
L3-Cache		22.00 MB
Overclocking	✗	✓

Integrated graphics (iGPU)

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
GPU name	Apple M1 (8 Core)	no iGPU
GPU frequency	0.39 - 1.30 GHz
CUs / Shader	128 / 1024	/
Raytracing	✗	✗
Max. displays	2
Max. GPU Memory	8 GB
Technology	5 nm
Release date	Q4/2020

NPU AI performance

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
AI hardware	Apple Neural Engine
AI specifications	16 Neural cores @ 11 TOPS
NPU + CPU + iGPU

Memory & PCIe

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
Memory	LPDDR4X-4266 (68.2 GB/s)	DDR4-2666 (85.4 GB/s)
Max. Memory	16 GB	128 GB
Memory channels	2	4
ECC	No	No
PCIe	4.0	3.0 x 44
PCIe Bandwidth		43.3 GB/s

Thermal Management

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
TDP	18 W	165 W
TDP (PL2)
TDP up	20 W
TDP down	10 W
T. junction max.		92 °C

Technical details

Wischen	Apple M1	Intel Core i9-9960X
Chip design	Monolithic	Monolithic
AES-NI	✓	✓
Operating systems	macOS	Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Instruction set	Armv8.5-A (64 bit)	x86-64 (64 bit)
ISA extensions	Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation	SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX-512
Release date	Q4/2020	Q4/2018
Release price		1684 $
Documents		Technical data sheet

User Reviews

Your rating

Here you can rate one or both of the processors. The average rating of Apple M1 is 4.5 stars (775 ratings), while Intel Core i9-9960X has received 1.0 stars (1 ratings).

Click on the stars to rate one or both processors.

Apple M1
8C / 8T · 0.60 - 3.20 GHz

★★★★★

Intel Core i9-9960X
16C / 32T · 3.10 - 4.50 GHz

★★★★★