Intel Core i5-9400F vs Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Intel Core i5-9400F CPU1 vs CPU2 Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
Intel Core i5-9400F Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)

CPU comparison

Intel Core i5-9400F or Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) - 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 Intel Core i5-9400F has 6 cores with 6 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.10 GHz. Up to 128 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Intel Core i5-9400F was released in Q1/2019.

The Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.20 GHz. The CPU supports up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) was released in Q3/2021.
Intel Core i5 (331) Family Apple M series (25)
Intel Core i 9000 (34) CPU group Apple M1 (9)
9 Generation 1
Coffee Lake S Refresh Architecture M1
Desktop / Server Segment Mobile
-- Predecessor --
Intel Core i5-10400F Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Intel Core i5-9400F is a 6 core processor with a clock frequency of 2.90 GHz (4.10 GHz). The Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) has 8 CPU cores with a clock frequency of 0.60 GHz (3.20 GHz).

Intel Core i5-9400F Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
6 Cores 8
6 Threads 8
normal Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
No Hyperthreading No
No Overclocking ? No
2.90 GHz (4.10 GHz) A-Core 0.60 GHz (3.20 GHz)
6x Firestorm
-- B-Core 0.60 GHz (2.06 GHz)
2x Icestorm

NPU AI performance

The performance values of the processor's AI unit. The isolated NPU performance is specified here, the total AI performance (NPU+CPU+iGPU) can be higher. Processors with support for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors.

Intel Core i5-9400F Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
-- AI hardware Apple Neural Engine
-- AI specifications 16 Neural cores @ 11 TOPS
-- NPU + CPU + iGPU --

Integrated graphics (iGPU)

The integrated graphics unit of a processor is not only responsible for the pure image output on the system, but can also significantly increase the efficiency of the system with the support of modern video codecs.

no iGPU GPU Apple M1 Pro (14 Core)
GPU frequency 0.39 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) 1.30 GHz
-- GPU Generation 1
Technology 5 nm
Max. displays 3
-- Compute units 224
-- Shader 1792
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
-- Max. GPU Memory 32 GB
-- 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.

no iGPU GPU Apple M1 Pro (14 Core)
No Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) Decode / Encode
No Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) Decode / Encode
No Codec h264 Decode / Encode
No Codec VP9 Decode / Encode
No Codec VP8 Decode
No Codec AV1 No
No Codec AVC Decode
No Codec VC-1 Decode
No Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The Intel Core i5-9400F supports a maximum of 128 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) can connect up to 32 GB of memory in 2 memory channels.

Intel Core i5-9400F Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
DDR4-2666 Memory LPDDR5-6400
128 GB Max. Memory 32 GB
2 (Dual Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
42.7 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 102.4 GB/s
No ECC No
-- L2 Cache 24.00 MB
9.00 MB L3 Cache --
3.0 PCIe version 4.0
16 PCIe lanes --
15.8 GB/s PCIe Bandwidth --

Thermal Management

The TDP (Thermal Design Power) of a processor specifies the required cooling solution. The Intel Core i5-9400F has a TDP of 65 W, that of the Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) is 35 W.

Intel Core i5-9400F Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
65 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 35 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
100 °C Tjunction max. --

Technical details

The Intel Core i5-9400F has a 9.00 MB cache, while the Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) cache has a total of 24.00 MB.

Intel Core i5-9400F Characteristic Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
14 nm Technology 5 nm
Monolithic Chip design Chiplet
x86-64 (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) Armv8.5-A (64 bit)
SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2 ISA extensions Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
LGA 1151-2 Socket --
VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d Virtualization Apple Virtualization Framework
Yes AES-NI Yes
Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux Operating systems macOS
Q1/2019 Release date Q3/2021
157 $ Release price --
show more data show more data


Rate these processors

Here you can rate the Intel Core i5-9400F to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 3.7 stars (14 ratings). Rate now:
Here you can rate the Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) to help other visitors make their purchasing decisions. The average rating is 4.9 stars (197 ratings). Rate now:


Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Intel Core i5-9400F (61%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 4 CPU benchmarks
Intel Core i5-9400F (49%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) (100%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
1005 (66%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
1534 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
5341 (56%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
9569 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
1085 (61%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
1768 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
4722 (47%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
9996 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
1346 (56%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
2397 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
5164 (50%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
10412 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
74 (41%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
181 (100%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
113 (100%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
628 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
423 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
2407 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
Apple M1 Pro (14 Core) @ 1.30 GHz
4580 (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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
9463 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
367.5 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
459 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 2.90 GHz
2550 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 0.60 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 4.10 GHz
177 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 3.90 GHz
987 (100%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

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.
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
2.90 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
9,569 CB R23 MC @ 35 W
273 (100%)

AI performance (NPU)

The performance values of the processor's AI unit. The isolated NPU performance is given here, the total AI performance (NPU+CPU+iGPU) can be higher.

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).
Intel Core i5-9400F Intel Core i5-9400F
6C 6T @ 2.90 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU) Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
8C 8T @ 0.60 GHz
11 (100%)

Devices using this processor

Intel Core i5-9400F Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)
Unknown Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021)
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2021)

News and articles for the Intel Core i5-9400F and the Apple M1 Pro (8-CPU)


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