Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 vs Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 CPU1 vs CPU2 Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)

CPU comparison

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 has 12 cores with 24 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.50 GHz. Up to 1536 GB of memory is supported in 4 memory channels. The Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 was released in Q1/2016.

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.
Intel Xeon E5 (71) Family Apple M series (25)
Intel Xeon E5 v4 (24) CPU group Apple M3 (6)
6 Generation 3
Broadwell E Architecture M3
Desktop / Server Segment Mobile
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 Predecessor Apple M2 Pro (12-CPU 19-GPU)
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 has 12 CPU cores and can calculate 24 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 is 3.00 GHz (3.50 GHz) while the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has 12 CPU cores and 12 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is at 0.70 GHz (4.06 GHz).

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Characteristic Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12 Cores 12
24 Threads 12
normal Core architecture hybrid (big.LITTLE)
Yes Hyperthreading No
No 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

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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Characteristic Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
-- AI hardware Apple Neural Engine
-- AI specifications 16 Neural cores @ 35 TOPS

Internal Graphics

The Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 or Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-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.

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 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 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 & PCIe

The Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 can use up to 1536 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 76.8 GB/s. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) supports up to 36 GB of memory in 2 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 153.6 GB/s.

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Characteristic Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
DDR4-2400 Memory LPDDR5-6400
1536 GB Max. Memory 36 GB
4 (Quad Channel) Memory channels 2 (Dual Channel)
76.8 GB/s Max. Bandwidth 153.6 GB/s
Yes ECC No
-- L2 Cache 36.00 MB
30.00 MB L3 Cache --
3.0 PCIe version 4.0
40 PCIe lanes --
39.4 GB/s PCIe Bandwidth --

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 is 160 W, while the Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) has a TDP of 35 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Characteristic Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
160 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 35 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. 100 °C

Technical details

The Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 is manufactured in 14 nm and has 30.00 MB cache. The Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) is manufactured in 3 nm and has a 36.00 MB cache.

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 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
Q1/2016 Release date Q4/2023
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 2 CPU benchmarks
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 (37%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 3 CPU benchmarks
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 (61%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
936 (40%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
2314 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.20 GHz
9823 (64%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15235 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
1063 (34%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
3152 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.20 GHz
8255 (53%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15619 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.20 GHz
18221 (67%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
27304 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
142 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
1059 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 GHz
1928 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 GHz
15061 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
@ 0.00 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
Apple M3 Pro (18 Core) @ 1.40 GHz
6390 (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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.50 GHz
146 (100%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 4.06 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 Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.20 GHz
2043 (100%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 3.80 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).
Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4
12C 24T @ 3.00 GHz
0 (0%)
Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU) Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
12C 12T @ 0.70 GHz
35 (100%)

Devices using this processor

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v4 Apple M3 Pro (12-CPU 18-GPU)
Unknown Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2023)
Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2023)

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