Apple M3 Pro 11-Core vs Intel Core i9-10880H
Apple M3 Pro 11-Core
► remove from comparisonThe 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 Core i9-10880H
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core i9-10880H is a high-end processor for laptops with eight cores based on the Comet Lake architecture (CML-H, 4th generation of Skylake). The processor clocks at between 2.3 and probably around 4.9 GHz and can execute up to sixteen threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading. The processor is still manufactured in the old 14nm (14nm++) process. Compared to the predecessor, the Core i9-9880H, the 10880H probably offers only increased clock rates.
The Comet Lake architecture is similar to Coffee Lake and offers the same features and is produced in the same 14nm process. Other than the improved clock rates, the memory controller now also supports faster DDR4-2933 RAM. More information on Comet Lake and all the models and articles on it can be found here.
Performance
The performance of the Core i9-10880H should be only slightly higher than the old Core i9-9880H. Thanks to the 8 cores and high Turbo speeds, even demanding applications should run very good on the CPU. However, long term performance is always depending on the laptop cooling system and system configuration. At the time of announcement, the i9-10880H is the second fastest Comet Lake-H CPU behind the Core i9-10980HK.
Graphics
The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer a similar performance as the UHD630 in the Core i7-9880H. As a low-end solution it will only run current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.
Power Consumption
Intel specifies the TDP with 45 watts and therefore the i9 is only suited for big laptops with good cooling solutions. Using cTDP-down, the CPU can also be configured to 35 Watt resulting in a reduced performance.
According to our information, the Core i9-10880H was not released but split up into the Core i7-10875H and Core i9-10885H.
Beware, the CPU was not yet released at the time of writing and the information is based on leaks and early information.
Model | Apple M3 Pro 11-Core | Intel Core i9-10880H | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series | Apple Apple M3 | Intel Comet Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series: Comet Lake Comet Lake-H |
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Clock | 2748 - 4056 MHz | 2300 - 5100 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cores / Threads | 11 / 11 5 x 4.1 GHz Apple M3 P-Core 6 x 2.7 GHz Apple M3 E-Core | 8 / 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP | 27 Watt | 45 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Transistors | 37000 Million | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology | 3 nm | 14 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | ARMv8 Instruction Set | Dual-Channel DDR4 Memory Controller, HyperThreading, AVX, AVX2, Quick Sync, Virtualization, AES-NI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
iGPU | Apple M3 Pro 14-Core GPU | Intel UHD Graphics 630 (350 - 1200 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | ARM | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manufacturer | www.apple.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Codename | Comet Lake-H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L1 Cache | 512 KB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L2 Cache | 2 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L3 Cache | 16 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Socket | FCBGA1440 |