Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs AMD Athlon Gold 7220U

Last updated:

CPU comparison with benchmarks


Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) CPU1 vs CPU2 AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) AMD Athlon Gold 7220U

CPU comparison

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) or AMD Athlon Gold 7220U - 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 M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has 12 cores with 12 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.06 GHz. Up to 36 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) was released in Q4/2023.

The AMD Athlon Gold 7220U has 2 cores with 4 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.70 GHz. The CPU supports up to 16 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The AMD Athlon Gold 7220U was released in Q3/2022.
Apple M series (25) Family AMD Athlon (29)
Apple M3 (6) CPU group AMD Ryzen 7020U (4)
3 Generation 6
M3 Architecture Mendocino (Zen 2)
Mobile Segment Mobile
Apple M2 Pro (12-CPU 19-GPU) Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has 12 CPU cores and can calculate 12 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz) while the AMD Athlon Gold 7220U has 2 CPU cores and 4 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the AMD Athlon Gold 7220U is at 2.40 GHz (3.70 GHz).

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Characteristic AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
12 Cores 2
12 Threads 4
hybrid (big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading Yes
No Overclocking ? No
0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz)
6x P-Core
A-Core 2.40 GHz (3.70 GHz)
2x Zen 2
0.74 GHz (2.75 GHz)
6x 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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Characteristic AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
Apple Neural Engine AI hardware --
16 Neural cores @ 35 TOPS AI specifications --

Internal Graphics

The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) or AMD Athlon Gold 7220U 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 M3 Pro (18 Core) GPU AMD Radeon 610M
0.39 GHz GPU frequency 0.40 GHz
1.40 GHz GPU (Turbo) 1.90 GHz
-- GPU Generation 9
3 nm Technology 6 nm
3 Max. displays 3
288 Compute units 2
2304 Shader 128
Yes Hardware Raytracing Yes
No Frame Generation No
36 GB Max. GPU Memory 8 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 Pro (18 Core) GPU AMD Radeon 610M
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 Decode
Decode Codec AVC Decode / Encode
Decode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) can use up to 36 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 153.6 GB/s. The AMD Athlon Gold 7220U supports up to 16 GB of memory in 2 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 44.0 GB/s.

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Characteristic AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
LPDDR5-6400 Memory LPDDR5-5500
36 GB Max. Memory 16 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
153.6 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 44.0 GB/s
No ECC No
36.00 MB L2 Cache 1.00 MB
-- L3 Cache 4.00 MB
4.0 PCIe version 3.0
-- PCIe lanes 4
-- PCIe Bandwidth 3.9 GB/s

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is 35 W, while the AMD Athlon Gold 7220U has a TDP of 15 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Characteristic AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
35 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 15 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down 8 W
100 °C Tjunction max. 100 °C

Technical details

The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is manufactured in 3 nm and has 36.00 MB cache. The AMD Athlon Gold 7220U is manufactured in 6 nm and has a 5.00 MB cache.

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Characteristic AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
3 nm Technology 6 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation ISA extensions SSE4a, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, FMA3
-- Socket FT6
Apple Virtualization Framework Virtualization AMD-V, SVM
Yes AES-NI Yes
macOS, iPadOS Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Q4/2023 Release date Q3/2022
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


Rate these processors

Here you can rate the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 5.0 stars (217 ratings). Rate now:
Here you can rate the AMD Athlon Gold 7220U to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 4.5 stars (2 ratings). Rate now:


Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U (39%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U (16%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
2314 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
934 (40%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15235 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.00 GHz
2154 (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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
3152 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
1180 (37%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15619 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.00 GHz
2629 (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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
Apple M3 Pro (18 Core) @ 1.40 GHz
6390 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
AMD Radeon 610M @ 1.90 GHz
383 (6%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
27304 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.00 GHz
5012 (18%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
142 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.70 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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
1059 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
0 (0%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
1928 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.70 GHz
0 (0%)

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 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15061 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 3.00 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 M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 0.70 GHz
35 (100%)
AMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
2C 4T @ 2.40 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023)
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2023)
Unknown

Popular comparisons containing this CPUs

1. Apple M3 Pro (11-CPU 14-GPU)Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (11-CPU 14-GPU) vs Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
2. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Intel Core i9-13900H Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Intel Core i9-13900H
3. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Apple M1 Max (32-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Apple M1 Max (32-GPU)
4. AMD Athlon Gold 7220UIntel Core i5-1235U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U vs Intel Core i5-1235U
5. AMD Athlon Gold 7220UIntel Core i3-1215U AMD Athlon Gold 7220U vs Intel Core i3-1215U
6. AMD Ryzen 3 7320UAMD Athlon Gold 7220U AMD Ryzen 3 7320U vs AMD Athlon Gold 7220U
7. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Apple M2 Max (38-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Apple M2 Max (38-GPU)
8. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Intel Core i7-13700H Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Intel Core i7-13700H
9. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Apple M2 Pro (12-CPU 19-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Apple M2 Pro (12-CPU 19-GPU)
10. Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)Apple M2 Max (30-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) vs Apple M2 Max (30-GPU)


back to index