Apple M2 (8-GPU) vs Intel Core i3-12100F

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Apple M2 (8-GPU) CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Core i3-12100F
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Intel Core i3-12100F

CPU comparison

Apple M2 (8-GPU) or Intel Core i3-12100F - 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 Apple M2 (8-GPU) has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. Up to 24 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Apple M2 (8-GPU) was released in Q2/2022.

The Intel Core i3-12100F has 4 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.30 GHz. The CPU supports up to 128 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core i3-12100F was released in Q1/2022.
Apple M series (23) Family Intel Core i3 (205)
Apple M2 (8) CPU group Intel Core i 12000 (34)
2 Generation 12
M2 Architecture Alder Lake S
Mobile Segment Desktop / Server
Apple M1 Predecessor --
Apple M3 (8-GPU) Successor Intel Core i3-13100F

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple M2 (8-GPU) has 8 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Apple M2 (8-GPU) is 0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz) while the Intel Core i3-12100F has 4 CPU cores and 8 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Intel Core i3-12100F is at 3.30 GHz (4.30 GHz).

Apple M2 (8-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i3-12100F
8 Cores 4
8 Threads 8
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? No
0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz)
4x Avalanche
A-Core 3.30 GHz (4.30 GHz)
4x Golden Cove
0.60 GHz (2.42 GHz)
4x Blizzard
B-Core --

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 M2 (8-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i3-12100F
Apple Neural Engine AI hardware --
16 Neural cores @ 15.8 TOPS AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

The Apple M2 (8-GPU) or Intel Core i3-12100F has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

Apple M2 (8 Core) GPU no iGPU
0.45 GHz GPU frequency --
1.40 GHz GPU (Turbo) --
2 GPU Generation --
5 nm Technology
2 Max. displays
128 Compute units --
1024 Shader --
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
24 GB Max. GPU Memory --
-- 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.

Apple M2 (8 Core) GPU no iGPU
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) No
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) No
Decode / Encode Codec h264 No
Decode / Encode Codec VP9 No
Decode Codec VP8 No
No Codec AV1 No
Decode Codec AVC No
Decode Codec VC-1 No
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG No

Memory & PCIe

The Apple M2 (8-GPU) can use up to 24 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 102.4 GB/s. The Intel Core i3-12100F supports up to 128 GB of memory in 2 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 76.8 GB/s.

Apple M2 (8-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i3-12100F
LPDDR5-6400 Memory DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200
24 GB Max. Memory 128 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
102.4 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 76.8 GB/s
No ECC No
20.00 MB L2 Cache 5.00 MB
-- L3 Cache 12.00 MB
4.0 PCIe version 5.0
-- PCIe lanes 20
-- PCIe Bandwidth 78.8 GB/s

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Apple M2 (8-GPU) is 20 W, while the Intel Core i3-12100F has a TDP of 58 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

Apple M2 (8-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i3-12100F
20 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 58 W
-- TDP (PL2) 89 W
25 W TDP up --
10 W TDP down --
100 °C Tjunction max. 100 °C

Technical details

The Apple M2 (8-GPU) is manufactured in 5 nm and has 20.00 MB cache. The Intel Core i3-12100F is manufactured in 10 nm and has a 17.00 MB cache.

Apple M2 (8-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i3-12100F
5 nm Technology 10 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8.5-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX2+
-- Socket LGA 1700
Apple Virtualization Framework Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
Yes AES-NI Yes
macOS, iPadOS Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Q2/2022 Release date Q1/2022
-- Release price 97 $
show more data show more data


Rate these processors

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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 4 CPU benchmarks
Apple M2 (8-GPU) (99%)
Intel Core i3-12100F (87%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 5 CPU benchmarks
Apple M2 (8-GPU) (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F (82%)

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.
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
120 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
86 (72%)

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.
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
555 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
401 (72%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
1592 (96%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
1658 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8558 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
8443 (99%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
1874 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
1716 (92%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
8853 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
6422 (73%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
2596 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
2157 (83%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
10062 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
7428 (74%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
15472 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
13880 (90%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
642 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
3204 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
Apple M2 (8 Core) @ 1.40 GHz
2840 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
277 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
0 (0%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Multi-Core)

The CPU-Z benchmark measures a processor's performance by measuring the time it takes the system to complete all benchmark calculations. The faster the benchmark is completed, the higher the score.
Apple M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 0.66 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 3.30 GHz
3352 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.30 GHz
242 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 4.00 GHz
1204 (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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8,558 CB R23 MC @ 20 W
428 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
3.30 GHz
0 (0%)

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 M2 (8-GPU) Apple M2 (8-GPU)
8C 8T @ 0.66 GHz
15.8 (100%)
Intel Core i3-12100F Intel Core i3-12100F
4C 8T @ 3.30 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Apple M2 (8-GPU) Intel Core i3-12100F
Apple MacBook Air 14 (2022)
Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2022)
Unknown

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