Intel Core i7-6950X vs Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
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CPU comparison with benchmarks
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) | |
CPU comparisonIntel Core i7-6950X or Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) - 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 i7-6950X has 10 cores with 20 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. Up to 128 GB of memory is supported in 4 memory channels. The Intel Core i7-6950X was released in Q2/2016. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has 12 cores with 12 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 4.06 GHz. The CPU supports up to 36 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) was released in Q4/2023. |
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| Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition (24) | Family | Apple M series (25) |
| Intel Core i 6000X (1) | CPU group | Apple M3 (6) |
| 6 | Generation | 3 |
| Broadwell E | Architecture | M3 |
| Desktop / Server | Segment | Mobile |
| -- | Predecessor | Apple M2 Pro (12-CPU 19-GPU) |
| -- | Successor | -- |
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CPU Cores and Base FrequencyThe Intel Core i7-6950X is a 10 core processor with a clock frequency of 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz). The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has 12 CPU cores with a clock frequency of 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz). |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Characteristic | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| 10 | Cores | 12 |
| 20 | Threads | 12 |
| normal | Core architecture | hybrid (big.LITTLE) |
| Yes | Hyperthreading | No |
| Yes | Overclocking ? | No |
| 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz) | A-Core | 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz) 6x P-Core |
| -- | B-Core | 0.74 GHz (2.75 GHz) 6x E-Core |
NPU AI performanceThe 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. |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Characteristic | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| -- | AI hardware | Apple Neural Engine |
| -- | AI specifications | 16 Neural cores @ 35 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. |
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| no iGPU | GPU | Apple M3 Pro (18 Core) |
| GPU frequency | 0.39 GHz | |
| -- | GPU (Turbo) | 1.40 GHz |
| -- | GPU Generation | -- |
| Technology | 3 nm | |
| Max. displays | 3 | |
| -- | Compute units | 288 |
| -- | Shader | 2304 |
| No | Hardware Raytracing | Yes |
| No | Frame Generation | No |
| -- | Max. GPU Memory | 36 GB |
| -- | DirectX Version | -- |
Hardware codec supportA 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. |
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| no iGPU | GPU | Apple M3 Pro (18 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 | Decode |
| No | Codec AVC | Decode |
| No | Codec VC-1 | Decode |
| No | Codec JPEG | Decode / Encode |
Memory & PCIeThe Intel Core i7-6950X supports a maximum of 128 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) can connect up to 36 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Characteristic | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| DDR4-2400 | Memory | LPDDR5-6400 |
| 128 GB | Max. Memory | 36 GB |
| 4 (Quad Channel) | Memory channels | 2 (Dual Channel) |
| 76.8 GB/s | Max. Bandwidth | 153.6 GB/s |
| No | ECC | No |
| -- | L2 Cache | 36.00 MB |
| 25.00 MB | L3 Cache | -- |
| 3.0 | PCIe version | 4.0 |
| 40 | PCIe lanes | -- |
| 39.4 GB/s | PCIe Bandwidth | -- |
Thermal ManagementThe TDP (Thermal Design Power) of a processor specifies the required cooling solution. The Intel Core i7-6950X has a TDP of 140 W, that of the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is 35 W. |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Characteristic | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| 140 W | TDP (PL1 / PBP) | 35 W |
| -- | TDP (PL2) | -- |
| -- | TDP up | -- |
| -- | TDP down | -- |
| -- | Tjunction max. | 100 °C |
Technical detailsThe Intel Core i7-6950X has a 25.00 MB cache, while the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) cache has a total of 36.00 MB. |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Characteristic | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| 14 nm | Technology | 3 nm |
| Monolithic | Chip design | Chiplet |
| x86-64 (64 bit) | Instruction set (ISA) | Armv8-A (64 bit) |
| SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2 | ISA extensions | Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation |
| LGA 2011-3 | Socket | -- |
| VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d | Virtualization | Apple Virtualization Framework |
| Yes | AES-NI | Yes |
| Windows 10, Linux | Operating systems | macOS, iPadOS |
| Q2/2016 | Release date | Q4/2023 |
| -- | Release price | -- |
| show more data | show more data | |
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10C 20T @ 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save!
12C 12T @ 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save!
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Rate these processors
Average performance in benchmarks
⌀ Single core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
⌀ Multi core performance in 4 CPU benchmarks
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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
@ 0.00 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
Apple M3 Pro (18 Core) @ 1.40 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.00 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 0.70 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz |
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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.
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.50 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz |
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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).
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).
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Intel Core i7-6950X
10C 20T @ 3.00 GHz |
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Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 0.70 GHz |
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Devices using this processor |
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| Intel Core i7-6950X | Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) |
| Unknown | Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023) Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2023) |
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