Home / CPU Comparison / Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus or Apple M1 Ultra: What's better?

Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus

vs

Apple M1 Ultra

CPU Comparison Result

Below are the results of a comparison of Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Apple M1 Ultra processors based on key performance characteristics, as well as power consumption and much more.

Advantages

Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus

More Total Cores: 24 (24 vs 20)
Higher Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency: 5.4 GHz (5.4 GHz vs 3.228 GHz)
Higher Technology: 3 nm (3 nm vs 5 nm)
Newer Launch Date: January 2026 (January 2026 vs March 2022)

Apple M1 Ultra

Larger L3 Cache: 96 MB system level cache (36 MB shared vs 96 MB system level cache)

Basic

Intel

Label Name

Apple

January 2026

Launch Date

March 2022

Laptop

Platform

Desktop

CPU Architecture

Apple Firestorm + Apple Icestorm

CPU Name

Apple M1 Ultra

290HX

Model Name

The Intel processor number is just one of several factors - along with processor brand, system configurations, and system-level benchmarks - to be considered when choosing the right processor for your computing needs.

Apple M1 Ultra

Arrow Lake

Code Name

Intel

Foundry

TSMC

Ultra 9 (Arrow Lake)

Generation

Apple M1 series

CPU Specifications

Interconnect Bandwidth

2.5 TB/s

Interconnect Technology

UltraFusion

Performance Cores

Total Cores

Cores is a hardware term that describes the number of independent central processing units in a single computing component (die or chip).

Total Threads

Where applicable, Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology is only available on Performance-cores.

Performance-cores

Efficient-cores

2.7 GHz

Performance-core Base Frequency

2.1 GHz

Efficient-core Base Frequency

Efficient-core Max Turbo Frequency

Maximum E-core turbo frequency derived from Intel® Turbo Boost Technology.

2.064 GHz

Instruction Set Extensions

NEON

5.4 GHz

Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency

Maximum P-core turbo frequency derived from Intel® Turbo Boost Technology.

3.228 GHz

Extended Instruction Set

ARMv8-A, NEON

112 K per core

L1 Cache

P-cores: 192 KB instruction + 128 KB data per core; E-cores: 128 KB instruction + 64 KB data per core

2 MB per core

L2 Cache

P-core clusters: 48 MB total; E-core clusters: 8 MB total

36 MB shared

L3 Cache

96 MB system level cache

100 MHz

Bus Frequency

FCBGA-2114

CPU Socket

The socket is the component that provides the mechanical and electrical connections between the processor and motherboard.

Multiplier

Yes

Unlocked Multiplier

3 nm

Technology

Lithography refers to the semiconductor technology used to manufacture an integrated circuit, and is reported in nanometer (nm), indicative of the size of features built on the semiconductor.

5 nm

TDP

105 °C

Max. Operating Temperature

Junction Temperature is the maximum temperature allowed at the processor die.

5.0

PCIe Version

PCI Express is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard used for connecting high-speed components, replacing older standards such as AGP, PCI, and PCI-X. It has gone through multiple revisions and improvements since its initial release. PCIe 1.0 was first introduced in 2002, and in order to meet the growing demand for higher bandwidth, subsequent versions have been released over time.

x86-64

Instruction Set

The instruction set is a hard program stored inside the CPU that guides and optimizes CPU operations. With these instruction sets, the CPU can run more efficiently. There are many manufacturers that design CPUs, which results in different instruction sets, such as the 8086 instruction set for the Intel camp and the RISC instruction set for the ARM camp. x86, ARM v8, and MIPS are all codes for instruction sets. Instruction sets can be extended; for example, x86 added 64-bit support to create x86-64. Manufacturers developing CPUs that are compatible with a certain instruction set need authorization from the instruction set patent holder. A typical example is Intel authorizing AMD, enabling the latter to develop CPUs compatible with the x86 instruction set.

ARMv8-A

Transistor Count

114 billion

Memory Specifications

Memory Bus Width

1024-bit

DDR5-6400

Memory Type

Intel® processors come in four different types: Single Channel, Dual Channel, Triple Channel, and Flex Mode. Maximum supported memory speed may be lower when populating multiple DIMMs per channel on products that support multiple memory channels.

Unified LPDDR5-6400

LPDDR5 Speed

LPDDR5-6400

192 GB

Max Memory Size

Max memory size refers to the maximum memory capacity supported by the processor.

128 GB

Memory Channels

The number of memory channels refers to the bandwidth operation for real world application.

102.4 GB/s

Max Memory Bandwidth

Max Memory bandwidth is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored into a semiconductor memory by the processor (in GB/s).

800 GB/s

Maximum Memory Speed

6400 MT/s

Yes

ECC Memory Support

GPU Specifications

GPU APIs

Metal, OpenCL

GPU Name

Apple M1 Ultra GPU

Media Engine

Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW

ProRes Encode/Decode Engines

Video Concurrency

Up to 18 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video

Video Decode

H.264, HEVC, ProRes, ProRes RAW

Video Decode Engines

Video Encode

H.264, HEVC, ProRes, ProRes RAW

Video Encode Engines

Video Processing Unit

Apple media engine with ProRes acceleration

true

Integrated Graphics Model

An integrated GPU refers to the graphics core that is integrated into the CPU processor. Leveraging the processor's powerful computational capabilities and intelligent power efficiency management, it delivers outstanding graphics performance and a smooth application experience at a lower power consumption.

300 MHz

GPU Base Frequency

450 MHz

2000 MHz

GPU Max Dynamic Frequency

1296 MHz

Graphics Core Count

Execution Units

The Execution Unit is the foundational building block of Intel’s graphics architecture. Execution Units are compute processors optimized for simultaneous Multi-Threading for high throughput compute power.

Number of Displays Supported

Up to 5 displays

Graphics Performance

Up to 21.2 TFLOPS FP32

OpenCL Support

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a multi-platform API (Application Programming Interface) for heterogeneous parallel programming.

Yes