Processors/Comparison
15 specifications
Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
On paper, the Apple M5 Max (18-core) has more cores (18 against 8). Specifications describe what each chip is designed to do; how much of that either one holds under continuous load is a separate question.
Apple M5 Max (18-core)
Apple · Apple M5 · Laptop
Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
Intel · Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) · Laptop
Cores and clocks
Cache and power
Platform
A check marks the higher figure only on rows where higher is unambiguously better. Rows without one are not ties; they are specifications where “better” has no meaning.
Reading the table
What the difference means.
Two platforms
The M5 Max (18-core) is an Apple system-on-chip in a Mac running macOS; the Core Ultra 7 256V is a Intel processor in a Windows or Linux machine. The choice between them is usually made by the operating system and the software it runs before it is made by the chip, and the rows below compare less than they appear to.
What Apple publishes
Apple prints the M5 Max (18-core)'s cores by kind, its GPU cores and its memory bandwidth, and no clock speed, power rating or cache size. So wherever the Core Ultra 7 256V shows a clock, a TDP or a cache figure, the Apple column has nothing to set against it, and those rows cannot rank this pair. An Apple core and a Intel core are different designs, so even the core counts are not a like-for-like measure of work.
What no table says
How much of its speed a processor keeps after the first minute depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in. If you own one of these, measure it: the test is free and runs in this browser.
Questions
- Is the M5 Max (18-core) better than the Core Ultra 7 256V?
- On the specifications they are closely matched. No specification says how much speed either one keeps under a long load; that depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in, and it is what a sustained test measures.
- Does the M5 Max (18-core) or the Core Ultra 7 256V have integrated graphics?
- Both do: Apple GPU, 32-core or 40-core on the M5 Max (18-core) and Intel Arc 140V GPU on the Core Ultra 7 256V.
- Can the M5 Max (18-core) and the Core Ultra 7 256V be compared on clock speed?
- No. Apple does not publish a clock speed for the M5 Max (18-core), and clocks are not comparable across different core designs anyway. A sustained test run on each machine is the fair comparison: it measures what each one does, not what its sheet says.
- How much memory bandwidth does the M5 Max (18-core) have?
- Apple prints 460 or 614 GB/s. For the Core Ultra 7 256V it depends on the memory the machine is built with, which is the laptop or board maker's choice, not the processor's.
More comparisons
- Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs Apple M5 Pro (18-core)
- Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs Intel Core i5-13420H
- Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs Intel Core Ultra 7 355
- Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800H
- Apple M5 Max (18-core) vs Intel Core Ultra 5 325
- Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs Intel Core Ultra 7 258V
- Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs AMD Ryzen 7 6800H
- Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
- Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs Intel Core Ultra 7 355
- Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs Apple M5 Pro (18-core)
Every figure on this table is a design target. None of it is a measurement.
Nothing above describes how a processor behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.
We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.