Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) vs Intel Core i5 12600KF

[ VERDICT ] Winner: Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) (97/100)

Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) leads overall with a score of 97/100 compared to Intel Core i5 12600KF (59/100), offering superior measured performance and technical specifications.

Benchmark Performance Comparison

Normalized Lab Scores
Benchmark measurements and scores across compared devices
Benchmark Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Efficiency 98.0 Excellent WINNER 47.0 Poor
Performance 100.0 Excellent WINNER 72.0 Good

Detailed Technical Specifications

CPU

CPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Base Frequency (E) 4.38 GHz 2.8 GHz
Base Frequency (P) 4.61 GHz 3.7 GHz
E-Cores 12 4
E-Threads 12 4
L1 Cache 192K (per core) 80K (per core)
Multiplier 46x 37x
P-Cores 6 6
P-Threads 6 12
Total Cores 18 10
Total Threads 18 16
Unlocked Multiplier No Yes
Bus Frequency 100 MHz
L2 Cache 9728K (shared)
L3 Cache 20MB (shared)
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.6 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 4.9 GHz

GeekBench v6

GeekBench v6 specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Background blur 100.3 images/sec 57.3 images/sec
Clang compilation 262.5 Klines/sec 97.5 Klines/sec
File compression 2530 MB/sec 1020 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 738.1 pages/sec 304.3 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 744.9 Mpixels/sec 396.9 Mpixels/sec
Photo processing 250.8 images/sec 118.2 images/sec
Ray tracing 46.5 Mpixels/sec 22.3 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 450.7 pages/sec 263.3 pages/sec

General

General specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Codename Apple M5 Alder Lake
Instruction Set ARMv9 x86-64
Integrated GPU Apple M5 Pro GPU (20-core) No
Released March 3, 2026 October 27, 2021
Type Laptop Desktop
Vendor Apple Intel
AMD Equivalent -AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Model number i5-12600KF
Successor -Intel Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus

Memory Support

Memory Support specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
ECC Support No No
Max. Memory Bandwidth 307 GB/s 76.8 GB/s
Max. Memory Size 64 GB 128 GB
Memory Channels 16 2
Memory Types - LPDDR5X-9600 - DDR5-4800- DDR4-3200

Package

Package specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Fabrication Process 3 nm 10 nm
Peak Temperature 100°C 100°C
Socket Apple M-Socket LGA-1700
Transistors 28 billions
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 150 W
TDP (PL1) 125 W

PassMark

PassMark specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Data compression 697.9 MBytes/sec 342.1 MBytes/sec
Data encryption 40.8 GBytes/sec 18.4 GBytes/sec
Extended instructions 33.3B Matrices/sec 22B Matrices/sec
Find prime numbers 486M Primes/sec 90M Primes/sec
Floating point math 186.8 GOps/sec 67 GOps/sec
Integer math 132.7 GOps/sec 87.8 GOps/sec
Physics 5687 Frames/sec 1544 Frames/sec
Random string sorting 85.6M Strings/sec 35.6M Strings/sec

iGPU

iGPU specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Execution Units 320
GPU Boost Clock 1620 MHz
Integrated Graphics Apple M5 Pro GPU (20-core)
ROPs 80
Shading Units 2560
TGP 28 W
TMUs 160

Misc

Misc specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Official Site Intel Core i5 12600KF official page
PCI Express Lanes 20
PCI Express Version 5.0
Technologies - Compute: ABM, ADX, BMI1, BMI2, CLMUL, F16C, SHA- Performance: EIST, TBT 2.0, TSX- Virtualization: VT-d, VT-x- Security: RDRAND, TXT, XD bit

Performance Per Watt

Performance Per Watt specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Blender / Watt 1.8 PPW
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 7.6 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 103.5 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 220.1 PPW

Recent User Tests

Recent User Tests specifications comparison
Specification Apple M5 Pro (18-Core) Intel Core i5 12600KF
Date Benchmark
📘 2023-11-01(dav_szabo) Cinebench 2024
📘 2024-11-11(ooru) Cinebench 2024
📘 2025-01-12(Isdato) Cinebench 2024
📘 2025-01-15(Fei Mian) Cinebench 2024
📘 2025-03-04(Sylph) Cinebench 2024
📘 2025-11-01(desbiensl) Cinebench 2024
📘 2025-11-06(Bughunter47) Cinebench 2024

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