Intel Core i5-11320H vs Apple M2 Pro vs Intel Core i5-11300H

Intel Core i5-11320H

The Intel Core i5-11320H is a mid range SoC for thin and light gaming laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the Tiger Lake H35 refresh generation and will be announced in Q3 2021. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP setting and can vary from 2.5 (28 W TDP) to 3.2 GHz (35 W). The boost of a single and two cores under load can reach up to 4.5 GHz. All four cores can reach up to 4.3 GHz. The L3 cache is reduced to 8 MB compared to the 12 MB of the higher end i7 models.

Thanks to the improved clock speeds, the performance gap to the faster i7-11370H should be quite small. The i7 still offers higher single and dual core Turbo speeds and more L3 cache.

The SoC also included the improved Xe graphics card with 96 CUs clocked at up to 1350 MHz.

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (four lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 in the chip.

The chip is produced on the improved 10nm process (called 10nm SuperFin) at Intel, which should be comparable to the 7nm process at TSMC (e.g. Ryzen 4000 series).

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.

Apple M2 Pro

The Apple M2 Pro is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the early 2023 MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models. It offers all 12 cores available in the chip divided in eight performance cores (P-cores) and four power-efficiency cores (E-cores). The E-cores clock with up to 3.4 GHz, the P-Cores up to 3.7 GHz (mostly 3.3 GHz in multi-threaded workloads and 3.4 GHz in single threaded).

The big cores (codename Avalanche) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 36 MB shared L2 cache (up from 24 MB in the M1 Pro). The four efficiency cores (codename Blizzard) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 24 MB SLC (System Level Cache). 

The unified memory (16 or 32 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 256 Bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU.

Apple states that the M2 Pro has a 25% higher performance than the M1 Pro in Xcode compiling.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 Pro offers all 19 cores.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine (faster than M1 Pro), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including ProRes).

The M2 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC (second generation) and integrates 40 billion transistors. 

Intel Core i5-11300H

The Intel Core i5-11300H is a mid range SoC for thin and light gaming laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the Tiger Lake H35 generation and was announced early 2021. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to Hyper-Threading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP setting and can vary from 2.6 (28 W TDP) to 3.1 GHz (35 W). The boost of a single and two cores under load can reach up to 4.4 GHz. All four cores can reach up to 4 GHz. The L3 cache is reduced to 8 MB compared to the 12 MB of the higher end i7 models.

The SoC also has the improved Xe graphics adapter with 80 CUs running at up to 1,300 MHz.

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (four lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 in the chip.

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.

Performance

The average 11300H in our database proves to be an OK lower mid-range CPU, as of early 2022, its multi-thread benchmark scores nearly matching those of the AMD Ryzen 3 5300U. The Core i5 will handle most day-to-day activities with ease, only sweating at the sight of latest triple-A games and similar tasks.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 40 W, the Nitro 5 AN517-53 is among the fastest laptops built around the 11300H that we know of. It can be around 50% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Core i5 series chip has a default TDP of 28 W to 35 W, the expectation being that laptop makers will go for a higher value in exchange for higher performance. Either way, these values are way too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The i5-11300H is built with Intel's third-generation 10 nm process marketed as SuperFin for lower-than-average, as of mid 2023, energy efficiency.