Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) vs Intel Core i5-8250U

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Core i5-8250U
Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Intel Core i5-8250U

CPU comparison

In this CPU comparison, we compare the Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) and the Intel Core i5-8250U and use benchmarks to check which processor is faster.

We compare the Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) 14 core processor released in Q4/2023 with the Intel Core i5-8250U which has 4 CPU cores and was introduced in Q3/2017.
Apple M series (25) Family Intel Core i5 (331)
Apple M3 (6) CPU group Intel Core i 8000U (KL) (7)
3 Generation 8
M3 Architecture Kaby Lake U Refresh
Mobile Segment Mobile
Apple M2 Max (30-GPU) Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) is a 14 core processor with a clock frequency of 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz). The processor can compute 14 threads at the same time. The Intel Core i5-8250U clocks with 1.60 GHz (3.40 GHz), has 4 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel.

Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i5-8250U
14 Cores 4
14 Threads 8
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? No
0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz)
10x P-Core
A-Core 1.60 GHz (3.40 GHz)
0.74 GHz (2.75 GHz)
4x E-Core
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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i5-8250U
Apple Neural Engine AI hardware --
16 Neural cores @ 35 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 M3 Max (30 Core) GPU Intel UHD Graphics 620
0.39 GHz GPU frequency 0.30 GHz
1.40 GHz GPU (Turbo) 1.10 GHz
-- GPU Generation 9.5
3 nm Technology 14 nm
5 Max. displays 3
480 Compute units 24
3840 Shader 192
Yes Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
96 GB Max. GPU Memory 16 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 M3 Max (30 Core) GPU Intel UHD Graphics 620
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 Codec VP8 Decode / Encode
Decode Codec AV1 No
Decode Codec AVC Decode / Encode
Decode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

Up to 96 GB of memory in a maximum of 3 memory channels is supported by the Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU), while the Intel Core i5-8250U supports a maximum of 32 GB of memory with a maximum memory bandwidth of 38.4 GB/s enabled.

Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i5-8250U
LPDDR5-6400 Memory DDR4-2400
96 GB Max. Memory 32 GB
3 Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
307.2 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 38.4 GB/s
No ECC No
36.00 MB L2 Cache --
-- L3 Cache 6.00 MB
4.0 PCIe version 3.0
-- PCIe lanes 12
-- PCIe Bandwidth 11.8 GB/s

Thermal Management

The Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) has a TDP of 50 W. The TDP of the Intel Core i5-8250U is 15 W. System integrators use the TDP of the processor as a guide when dimensioning the cooling solution.

Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i5-8250U
50 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 15 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
100 °C Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) has 36.00 MB cache and is manufactured in 3 nm. The cache of Intel Core i5-8250U is at 6.00 MB. The processor is manufactured in 14 nm.

Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Characteristic Intel Core i5-8250U
3 nm Technology 14 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2
-- Socket BGA 1356
Apple Virtualization Framework Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
Yes AES-NI Yes
macOS, iPadOS Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Q4/2023 Release date Q3/2017
-- Release price 385 $
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Rate these processors

Here you can rate the Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 4.9 stars (146 ratings). Rate now:
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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U (39%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U (15%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
1968 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
897 (46%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
20983 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
3118 (15%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
2150 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
753 (35%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
20961 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
2956 (14%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
3125 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
1127 (36%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
19404 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
3311 (17%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
Apple M3 Max (30 Core) @ 1.40 GHz
10650 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
Intel UHD Graphics 620 @ 1.10 GHz
422 (4%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
141 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
0 (0%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
1373 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
0 (0%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
348 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
1509 (100%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
46 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
5901 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
705.3 (100%)

CPU-Z Benchmark 17 (Single-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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
361 (100%)

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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 0.70 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 1.60 GHz
1680 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 4.06 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 3.40 GHz
157 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 3.60 GHz
0 (0%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 2.30 GHz
549 (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 M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU)
14C 14T @ 0.70 GHz
35 (100%)
Intel Core i5-8250U Intel Core i5-8250U
4C 8T @ 1.60 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Apple M3 Max (14-CPU 30-GPU) Intel Core i5-8250U
Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023)
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2023)
Acer Aspire
Acer Chromebook
Acer Spin
Acer Swift
Acer TravelMate
Asus UX410UA
Asus Vivobook 15
Asus ZenBook 13
Asus ZenBook 14
Dell Inspiron 13
Dell Inspiron 14
Dell Inspiron 15
Dell Inspiron 17
Dell XPS 13
Fujitsu Lifebook
Fujitsu Lifebook U938

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