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Intel Core i7-3540M vs Apple M1

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 2 - 36 %

Intel Core i7-3540M

Rank 1 - 100 %

Apple M1

Multi-core performance

Rank 2 - 20 %

Intel Core i7-3540M

Rank 1 - 100 %

Apple M1

Geekbench 6 Single-Core
Single-core performance

2C / 4T · 3.70 GHz

697

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

2,369

Geekbench 6 Multi-Core
Multi-core performance

2C / 4T · 3.00 GHz

1,502

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

8,576

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

2C / 4T · 3.70 GHz

751

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

1,742

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

2C / 4T · 3.00 GHz

1,647

8C / 8T · 3.20 GHz

7,650

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

Intel HD Graphics 4000

333

Apple M1 (8 Core)

2,610

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

Geekbench 5 (SC)
2,512 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

CPU performance per watt (efficiency)
140 entries

AI performance (NPU)
218 entries

Specifications

At a glance

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
Family	Intel Core i7 (300)	Apple M series (38)
CPU group	Intel Core i 3000M (29)	Apple M1 (9)
Architecture	Ivy Bridge H	M1
Technology	22 nm	5 nm
Segment	Notebook	Notebook
Socket	BGA 1023
Predecessor
Successor		Apple M2

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
CPU Cores / Threads	2 / 4	8 / 8
Hyperthreading / SMT	✓	✗
Core architecture	normal	hybrid (big.LITTLE)
Core Cluster 1:	2x 3.00 - 3.70 GHz	4x Firestorm 0.60 - 3.20 GHz
Core Cluster 2:		4x Icestorm 0.60 - 2.06 GHz
L2-Cache		16.00 MB
L3-Cache	4.00 MB
Overclocking	✗	✗

Integrated graphics (iGPU)

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
GPU name	Intel HD Graphics 4000	Apple M1 (8 Core)
GPU frequency	0.65 - 1.30 GHz	0.39 - 1.30 GHz
CUs / Shader	16 / 128	128 / 1024
Raytracing	✗	✗
Max. displays	3	2
Max. GPU Memory	2 GB	8 GB
Technology	22 nm	5 nm
Release date	Q1/2011	Q4/2020

NPU AI performance

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
AI hardware		Apple Neural Engine
AI specifications		16 Neural cores @ 11 TOPS
NPU + CPU + iGPU

Memory & PCIe

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
Memory	DDR3L-1600 (25.6 GB/s) DDR3-1600 (25.6 GB/s) DDR3L-1333 (21.3 GB/s) DDR3-1333 (21.3 GB/s)	LPDDR4X-4266 (68.2 GB/s)
Max. Memory	32 GB	16 GB
Memory channels	2	2
ECC	No	No
PCIe	3.0 x 16	4.0
PCIe Bandwidth	15.8 GB/s

Thermal Management

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
TDP	35 W	18 W
TDP (PL2)
TDP up		20 W
TDP down		10 W
T. junction max.

Technical details

Wischen	Intel Core i7-3540M	Apple M1
Chip design	Monolithic	Monolithic
AES-NI	✓	✓
Operating systems	Windows 10, Linux	macOS
Instruction set	x86-64 (64 bit)	Armv8.5-A (64 bit)
ISA extensions	SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX	Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
Release date	Q1/2013	Q4/2020
Release price	346 $
Documents	Technical data sheet

User Reviews

Your rating

Here you can rate one or both of the processors. The average rating of Intel Core i7-3540M is 3.7 stars (3 ratings), while Apple M1 has received 4.5 stars (769 ratings).

Click on the stars to rate one or both processors.

Intel Core i7-3540M
2C / 4T · 3.00 - 3.70 GHz

★★★★★

Apple M1
8C / 8T · 0.60 - 3.20 GHz

★★★★★