Apple M3 Pro 11-Core vs Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y

Apple M3 Pro 11-Core

The Apple M3 Pro 11 Core is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple for notebooks that was introduced late 2023. It integrates 11 of the 12 CPU cores with 5 of 6 performance cores with up to 4.06 GHz and 6 efficiency cores with 2.8 GHz.

Compared to the M2 Pro the M3 Pro has been slimmed down somewhat and swaps two performance cores for efficiency cores. This is due to the changed core configuration, as 6 cores are now used per cluster (the M2 Pro and M3 still have 4 cores per cluster). Furthermore, the memory bus has been reduced from 256 bits to 192 bits (150 GB/s vs. 200 GB/s). Thanks to the new architecture and higher clock rates, the new M3 Pro is still slightly faster.

The M3 Pro also integrates a new graphics card with dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration via hardware. In the entry-level model, only 14 of the chip's 18 cores are used and support up to 3 displays simultaneously (internal and 2 external).

GPU and CPU can jointly access the shared memory on the package (unified memory). This is available in 18 or 36 GB variants and offers 150 GB/s maximum bandwidth (192 bit bus).

The integrated 16-core Neural Engine has also been revised and now offers 18 TOPS peak performance (compared to 15.8 TOPS in the M2 but 35 TOPS in the new A17 Pro). The video engine now also supports AV1 decoding in hardware. H.264, HEVC and ProRes (RAW) can still be decoded and encoded.

Unfortunately, the integrated WLAN only continues to support WiFi 6E (no WiFi 7), unlike the small M3 SoC thunderbolt 4 is also supported (max 40 Gbit/s).

The chip is manufactured in the current 3nm process (N3B) at TSMC and contains 37 billion transistors (-7.5% vs. Apple M2 Pro).

Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y

The Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y is an energy-efficient, dual-core SoC designed for use in Windows tablets and passively cooled laptops. The Pentium is based on the old Amber Lake architecture that was initially introduced in 2018. The CPU was unveiled in Q1 2021; it is, in fact, not very different from Intel Core m3-8100Y, the only difference between the two being the slightly slower iGPU model (23 EU UHD Graphics 615 vs 24 EU UHD Graphics 615).

The two CPU cores run at 1.1 GHz to 3.4 GHz and are Hyper-Threading-enabled for 4 processing threads in total.

Architecture

Amber Lake family products are not known to have many improvements compared to the previous Kaby Lake and Skylake processors. They all share nearly the same per-MHz performance and nearly the same set of capabilities. Amber Lake processors do, however, have slightly higher clock speeds in comparison to their immediate predecessors.

Pentium 6500Y has a built-in dual-channel DDR3L-1600/LPDDR3-1866 memory controller as well as several PCI-Express 3.0 lanes for connecting graphics cards, SSDs and other devices. Four PCI-Express 3.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 3.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

Please note this is not a user-replaceable CPU. It is supposed to get soldered permanently on to the motherboard (BGA1515 socket interface).

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 6500Y as of August 2023, we have tested at least one laptop featuring the Core i3-10100Y, a chip that's just a little faster (Amber Lake, 2 cores, 4 threads, up to 3.9 GHz). Based on that, we expect the 6500Y to trail behind the AMD 3020e and the AMD 3050e just slightly. In other words, this is a very slow chip, as of mid 2023.

Graphics

The Intel UHD Graphics 615 normally has 24 Execution Units at its disposal but, for reason unbeknownst to us, just 23 EUs are active in the case of this Pentium. The graphics adapter is not much different from the HD Graphics 615 as found in 7th Gen Y-class Intel Core processors. As such, it has no support for SUHD 4320p monitors, nor can it HW-decode AV1, the latest video codec. Just the more usual VP9, AVC and HEVC are supported.

The UHD Graphics runs at 300 MHz to 900 MHz. This is not a GPU that a gamer would be happy with; very poor 3D performance is to be expected because of the thermal constraints (both Core m3-8100Y and Pentium 6500Y were created with thin tablets and ultra-thin laptops in mind) as well as the rather low TDP of the SoC. Most games will not be playable even if set to Lowest quality preset at 720p resolution. The least graphically intensive titles, like Farming Simulator 19, will pose no problem for the iGPU, though.

Power consumption

The chip is manufactured on one of the old 14 nm Intel processes for fairly unimpressive, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.

The Pentium 6500Y has a default TDP of 5 W (also known as the long-term power limit), half a watt higher than its immediate predecessors; despite the difference, a value this low makes the Pentium more than suitable for use in ultra-thin, passively cooled laptops, tablets, mini-PCs. The default TDP can be reduced slightly (with 3.5 W being the lowest Intel-recommended value) or increased (up to 7 W are possible) by laptop makers if needed, with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result.