Intel Pentium 3556U vs Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)

Last updated: 2024-04-16

CPU comparison with benchmarks


Intel Pentium 3556U		Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
CPU comparison Intel Pentium 3556U or Apple M2 Ultra (60-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 Pentium 3556U has 2 cores with 2 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 1.70 GHz. Up to 16 GB of memory is supported in 2 memory channels. The Intel Pentium 3556U was released in Q3/2013. The Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) has 24 cores with 24 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. The CPU supports up to 192 GB of memory in 8 memory channels. The Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) was released in Q2/2023.

Intel Pentium (150)	Family	Apple M series (25)
Intel Pentium 3000 (8)	CPU group	Apple M2 (8)
4	Generation	2
Haswell U	Architecture	M2
Mobile	Segment	Mobile
--	Predecessor	Apple M1 Ultra (48-GPU)
--	Successor	--

CPU Cores and Base Frequency The Intel Pentium 3556U has 2 CPU cores and can calculate 2 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Intel Pentium 3556U is 1.70 GHz while the Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) has 24 CPU cores and 24 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) is at 0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz).
Intel Pentium 3556U	Characteristic	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
2	Cores	24
2	Threads	24
normal	Core architecture	hybrid (big.LITTLE)
No	Hyperthreading	No
No	Overclocking ?	No
1.70 GHz	A-Core	0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz) 16x Avalanche
--	B-Core	0.60 GHz (2.42 GHz) 8x Blizzard
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.
Intel Pentium 3556U	Characteristic	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
--	AI hardware	Apple Neural Engine
--	AI specifications	32 Neural cores @ 31.6 TOPS

Internal Graphics The Intel Pentium 3556U or Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 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.
Intel HD Graphics (Haswell GT1)	GPU	Apple M2 Ultra (60 Core)
0.20 GHz	GPU frequency	0.45 GHz
1.00 GHz	GPU (Turbo)	1.40 GHz
7.5	GPU Generation	2
22 nm	Technology	5 nm
3	Max. displays	8
10	Compute units	960
80	Shader	7680
No	Hardware Raytracing	No
No	Frame Generation	No
2 GB	Max. GPU Memory	192 GB
11.1	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.
Intel HD Graphics (Haswell GT1)	GPU	Apple M2 Ultra (60 Core)
No	Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit)	Decode / Encode
No	Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit)	Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode	Codec h264	Decode / Encode
No	Codec VP9	Decode / Encode
No	Codec VP8	Decode
No	Codec AV1	No
Decode / Encode	Codec AVC	Decode
Decode	Codec VC-1	Decode
Decode	Codec JPEG	Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe The Intel Pentium 3556U can use up to 16 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 25.6 GB/s. The Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) supports up to 192 GB of memory in 8 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 819.1 GB/s.
Intel Pentium 3556U	Characteristic	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
LPDDR3-1333, LPDDR3-1600, DDR3L-1333, DDR3L-1600	Memory	LPDDR5-6400
16 GB	Max. Memory	192 GB
2 (Dual Channel)	Memory channels	8 (Octa Channel)
25.6 GB/s	Max. Bandwidth	819.1 GB/s
No	ECC	No
--	L2 Cache	72.00 MB
2.00 MB	L3 Cache	--
2.0	PCIe version	4.0
10	PCIe lanes	64
5.0 GB/s	PCIe Bandwidth	126.0 GB/s
Thermal Management The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Intel Pentium 3556U is 15 W, while the Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) has a TDP of 80 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.
Intel Pentium 3556U	Characteristic	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
15 W	TDP (PL1 / PBP)	80 W
--	TDP (PL2)	--
--	TDP up	--
--	TDP down	--
100 °C	Tjunction max.	100 °C
Technical details The Intel Pentium 3556U is manufactured in 22 nm and has 2.00 MB cache. The Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) is manufactured in 5 nm and has a 72.00 MB cache.
Intel Pentium 3556U	Characteristic	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
22 nm	Technology	5 nm
Monolithic	Chip design	Chiplet
x86-64 (64 bit)	Instruction set (ISA)	Armv8.5-A (64 bit)
SSE4.1, SSE4.2	ISA extensions	Rosetta 2 x86-Emulation
BGA 1168	Socket	--
VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d	Virtualization	Apple Virtualization Framework
Yes	AES-NI	Yes
Windows 10, Linux	Operating systems	macOS, iPadOS
Q3/2013	Release date	Q2/2023
--	Release price	--

show more data		show more data

Intel Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz buy now on Amazon and save! Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 0.66 GHz (3.50 GHz) buy now on Amazon and save!

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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks

Intel Pentium 3556U (21%)

Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) (100%)

⌀ Multi core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks

Intel Pentium 3556U (3%)

Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	408 (21%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	1940 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	772 (3%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	27860 (100%)

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 Pentium 3556U Intel HD Graphics (Haswell GT1) @ 1.00 GHz	160 (1%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) Apple M2 Ultra (60 Core) @ 1.40 GHz	21300 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	1040 (2%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	48560 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	126 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	1918 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	1695 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	28570 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	2689 (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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 GHz	21450 (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.


	Intel Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	66 (100%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 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 Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	126 (100%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 3.50 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 Pentium 3556U 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 28,570 CB R23 MC @ 80 W	357 (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).


	Intel Pentium 3556U 2C 2T @ 1.70 GHz	0 (0%)
	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU) 24C 24T @ 0.66 GHz	31.6 (100%)

Devices using this processor
Intel Pentium 3556U	Apple M2 Ultra (60-GPU)
Unknown	Unknown

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