Benchmarks Confirm Intel's Latest Core i9 Chip Outperforms Apple's M1 Max With Several Caveats

Benchmark results have started to surface for MSI's new GE76 Raider, one of the first laptops to be powered by Intel's new 12th-generation Core i9 processor.

Intel previously said that its new high-end Core i9 processor is faster than Apple's M1 Max chip in the 16-inch MacBook Pro and, as noted by Macworld, early Geekbench 5 results do appear to confirm this claim, but there are several caveats as usual.

Geekbench 5 results show that the GE76 Raider with the Core i9-12900HK processor has an average multi-core score of 12,707, while the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip has an average multi-core score of 12,244. This means the Core i9 processor is around 4% faster than the M1 Max chip in this particular comparison.

One of the biggest caveats is power efficiency. PCWorld measured the new GE76 Raider's power draw from the wall while running a CPU-only Cinebench R23 benchmark and found the Core i9 was consistently in the 100-watts range, and even briefly spiked to 140 watts. By comparison, when running the same Cinebench R23 benchmark on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, AnandTech found the M1 Max chip's power draw from the wall to be around 40 watts.

With the Core i9 consuming much more power, battery life takes a considerable hit, with PCWorld finding the new GE76 Raider achieved nearly six hours of offline video playback. Apple advertises the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro as getting up to 21 hours of battery life for offline video playback. Even with potential differences in display brightness and other factors, the 16-inch MacBook Pro clearly runs longer on battery.

Design is also a factor, with the GE76 Raider being a 17-inch gaming laptop that is just over an inch thick and weighs nearly 6.5 pounds. By comparison, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is 0.66 inches thick and weighs 4.8 pounds.

All in all, it appears that Intel's claim that its new Core i9 processor is faster than the M1 Max chip holds up, but Apple likely has no regrets with switching to its own power-efficient chips for thin-and-light notebooks like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. And with the M2 chip expected later this year, Apple is only just getting started.