Intel Core vs. AMD Ryzen: Laptop CPU Performance Comparison

November 5, 2024 Miguel Salas

If you come across TWO laptops that have the same specs except for the CPU, you may want to know which of the two CPUs is , at least in theory, faster.

The best way to do this is by looking for benchmarks that test EACH laptop running YOUR application/game. However, the chances of finding a video testing these two exact same models is very very slim.

The best you can do is try to get an idea by looking at CPU benchmarks.

Contents hide

Core i3 vs Ryzen 3

Single-Thread Benchmarks

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

Core i5 vs Ryzen 5

Single-Thread Benchmarks

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

Core i7 vs Ryzen 7

Single-Thread Benchmarks

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

Core i9 vs Ryzen 9

Single-Thread Benchmnarks

Multi-Thread Benchmnarks

Author Profile

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Benchmarks: Measuring CPU performance

Benchmarks will test a CPU performance by running scripts (in other words giving the CPU a task to complete). Systems (laptops or PCs) that complete the task faster will get a higher score.

You can then use these results to get an idea of the relative performance of two CPUs.

Now you don’t have to run these benchmarks yourself. Thousands of users submit their scores online and the average is calculated.

Ex: Say 5000 users submitted their scores for a laptop with a Core i5 8250U and the average score was 1540.

PassMark BenchMark Scores

For this post, we will limit ourselves to passmark benchmark scores. These are the most popular benchmark scores and the benchmarks with the highest amount of submitted data.The passmark benchmarks (test) only focuses on testing the CPU’s performance or at least it tries to. It tries to ignore RAM, graphics card, storage and any other components on a laptop.

Quoting from their website.

“PassMark runs heavy mathematical calculations that stress the CPU’s performance at compression, encryption, and physics-related tasks.”

Though these are mathematical calculations, the results can be applied for any CPU-related task such as:

Data Science
Compiling code
Virtual machine performance.
Spreadsheet calculations
Photo & Video Editing effects, functions and rendering
Final 3D Work Rendering
Gaming

Single-Thread vs Multi-Core Benchmarks

Note that passmark benchmarks results are given in two parts: single-thread and multi-thread results.

Depending on the game/application/task you want to increase performance on, you should focus on either single-threaded or multi-threaded results.

Some TASKS are mostly single-threaded while others are not as shown in this post. Ex: Rendering is multi-threaded, Editing/Drawing is single-threaded

Likewise, some games are more multi-threaded than others. Ex: LoL is single-threaded and CoD is very multi-threaded.

Core i3 vs Ryzen 3

CPU	Cores	Threads	Lowest Speed	Highest	Cache
Core i3 7100U	2	4	—	2.4	3MB
Core i3 8130U	2	4	2.2	3.4	4MB
Core i3 10110U	2	4	2.1	4.1	4MB
Core i3 115G4	2	4	3	4.1	6MB
Core i3 1215U	6	8	3.3	4.4	10MB
Core i3 1315U	6	8	3.3	4.5	10MB

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base	Turbo	Cache
Ryzen 3 3200U	2	4	2.6	3.5	4MB
Ryzen 3 3250U	2	4	2.6	3.5	5MB
Ryzen 3 4300U	4	4	2.7	3.7	6MB
Ryzen 3 5300U	4	8	2.6	3.8	6MB
Ryzen 3 7330U	4	8	2.3	4.3	8MB
Ryzen 3 7320U	4	8	2.4	4.1	6MB

Single-Thread Benchmarks

Some observations you can see right away:

Both the 12th and 13th gen Core i3 laptop CPUs are faster than the latest generation Ryzen 3 CPU.
The Core i3 11th gen laptop CPU outperforms a 7th generation Ryzen 3 CPU as well.
There doesn’t seem to be much performance gain between 4th,5th and 7th gen Ryzen 3 CPUs except for the Ryzen 3 7330U model which is significantly faster than previous generations and variants.
The Ryzen 3 720U is only slightly faster than 4th and 5th gen Ryzen 3 CPUs.

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

The multi-thread benchmarks show save for the latest Core i3 CPUs, Ryzen 3 CPUs pretty much dominate:

4th gen Ryzen 3 laptop CPUs score higher than 11th and 10th gen Core i3 CPUs.
7th gen Ryzen 3 CPUs have almost the same performance as 12th Core i3 CPUs.
Interestingly, the Ryzen 3 7320U did not outperform the Ryzen 3 5300U in the multi-thread benchmarks.

Core i5 vs Ryzen 5

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base(GHz)	Boost(GHz)	Cache
Core i5 7200U	2	4	—	2.5	3MB
Core i5 8265U	4	8	1.6	3.9	6MB
Core i5 10210U	4	8	1.6	4.2	6MB
Core i5 1135G7	4	8	2.4	4.2	8MB
Core i5 1235U	10	12	1.3	4.4	12MB
Core i5 1335U	10	12	1.3	4.6	12MB
Core i5 8300H	4	8	2.3	4	8MB
Core i5 9300H	4	8	2.4	4.1	8MB
Core i5 10300H	4	8	2.5	4.5	8MB
Core i5 11400H	6	12	2.2	4.5	12MB
Core i5 12450H	8	12	2	4.4	12MB
Core i5 13420H	8	12	1.9	4.6	12MB
Core i5 14450HX	10	16	2	4.8	20MB
Core i5 Ultra 5 125U	10	12	1.2	4.7	12MB

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base (GHz)	Boost (GHz)	Cache
Ryzen 5 3500U	4	8	2.1	3.7	4MB
Ryzen 5 3550H	4	8	2.1	3.7	4MB
Ryzen 5 4600U	6	12	2.1	4	8MB
Ryzen 5 4600H	6	12	3	4	8MB
Ryzen 5 5500U	6	12	2.1	4	8MB
Ryzen 5 5600U	6	12	2.3	4.2	16MB
Ryzen 5 5600H	6	12	3.3	4.2	16MB
Ryzen 5 6600U	6	12	2.9	4.5	16MB
Ryzen 5 6600H	6	12	3.3	4.5	16MB
Ryzen 5 7520U	4	8	2.8	4.3	6MB
Ryzen 5 7530U	6	12	2.9	4.4	16MB
Ryzen 5 7535HS	6	12	3.3	4.55	16MB
Ryzen 5 7540U	6	12	3.2	4.7	16MB
Ryzen 5 7545U	6	12	3	4.7	16MB

Single-Thread Benchmarks

With the exception of the 14th generation Core i5 (“H” for High Performance), the Ryzen 5 7450U (“U” for low power) outperforms every other Core i5 CPU in single thread benchmarks.
Likewise a Ryzen 5 6600H does not perform better than a low power “U” CPU (Ex: Core i5 1235U).
Core i5 1335U ( “U” for low power) outperforms high performance “H” CPUs like the Core i5 13240H.
- Be very careful here. Although it does outperform it in these benchmarks. Performance when gaming will be much higher with the Core i5 13250H because it will be able to sustain high clock rates for LONGER periods of time.

Note that these benchmarks do not include 8th generation Ryzen 5 CPUs which would be the equivalent of Core i5 14450HX as they have not been released yet on laptops.

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

Currently as of Nov 2024, there’s not been a release of a laptop with an 8th gen Ryzen 5 CPU thus the 14th gen Core i5 currently dominates all CPUs in this graph.
Multi-thread performance is about the same for the Ryzen 5 6600H and Core i5 13420H.
The Ryzen 5 6600H also has the same performance as the commonly found Ryzen 5 7535HS (slightly higher).
Ryzen 5 6600U (low voltage) outperforms the Core i5 1335U (low voltage).
For the most part, Ryzen 5 CPUs outperform equivalent generation Intel Core i5 CPUs.
- Note that the 7th gen Ryzen 5 7545U is a very low voltage CPU used on very portable ultrabooks thus performance will be much much lower than similar CPUs used on other laptops which run on higher power. It’s not a good benchmark to measure the relative performance of 7th gen Ryzen 5 CPUs.

Core i7 vs Ryzen 7

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base (GHz)	Boost (GHz)	Cache
Core i7 7600U	2	4	—	2.8	4MB
Core i7 8565U	4	8	1.8	4.6	8MB
Core i7 1065G7	4	8	1.3	3.9	8MB
Core i7 1165G7	4	8	2.8	4.7	12MB
Core i7 1260P	12	16	2.1	4.7	18MB
Core i7 1355U	10	12	1.2	5	12MB
Core i7 7820HQ	4	8	2.9	3.9	8MB
Core i7 8750H	6	12	2.2	4.1	9MB
Core i7 9750H	6	12	2.6	4.5	12MB
Core i7 10750H	6	12	2.6	5	12MB
Core i7 11800H	8	16	2.3	4.6	24MB
Core i7 12700H	14	20	1.7	4.7	24MB
Core i7 13700H	14	20	1.9	5	24MB
Core i7 14700HX	20	28	1.9	5.4	30MB

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base (GHz)	Boost (GHz)	Cache
Ryzen 7 3700U	4	8	2.3	4	6MB
Ryzen 7 3750H	4	8	2.3	4	6MB
Ryzen 7 4700U	8	8	2	4.1	8MB
Ryzen 7 4800U	8	16	1.8	4.2	12MB
Ryzen 7 4800H	8	16	2.9	4.2	12MB
Ryzen 7 5700U	8	16	1.8	4.3	8MB
Ryzen 7 5800U	8	16	1.9	4.4	16MB
Ryzen 7 5800H	8	16	3.2	4.4	16MB
Ryzen 7 5800HS	8	16	2.8	4.3	16MB
Ryzen 7 6800U	8	16	2.7	4.7	20MB
Ryzen 7 6800H	8	16	3.2	4.7	20MB
Ryzen 7 6800HS	8	16	3.2	4.7	20MB
Ryzen 7 7730U	8	16	2	4.5	12MB
Ryzen 7 7745HX	6	12	3.6	5.1	32MB
Ryzen 7 7840U	8	16	3.3	5.1	24MB
Ryzen 7 8840U	8	16	3	5	16MB
Ryzen 7 8845HS	8	16	3.5	5.1	32MB

Single-Thread Benchmarks

Note that the most powerful Core i7 14700HX found on laptops as of Nov 2024 performs just as well as the slightly older 7th generation Ryzen 7 CPU.
The 8th generation Ryzen 7 8845HS does not perform as well as the Ryzen 7 7745HX.
- This result MAY not be accurate as there’s only been a few months since the 8th gen Ryzen 7 has been released on LAPTOPS.

Multi-Thread Benchmarks

- Overall the Core i7 CPUs have better multicore performance than the equivalent Ryzen 7 CPUs.
  - For example, a 14th gen Core i7 “H” CPU will outperform the equivalent 7th gen Ryzen 7 7745HX.
- There’s not enough data to draw conclusions from the Ryzen 7 8845HS.
  - Current benchmarks show that its multicore performance is weaker than the 7th gen Ryzen 7 7745HX.
- Current benchmarks show that the Core i7 13700H outperforms all other Ryzen CPUs in multithreaded calculations

Core i9 vs Ryzen 9

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base (GHz)	Boost (GHz)	Cache
Core i9-8950HK	6	12	2.9	4.8	12MB
Core i9-9980HK	8	16	2.4	5	16MB
Core i9-10980HK	8	16	2.4	5.3	16MB
Core i9-11900H	8	16	2.5	4.9	24MB
Core i9-12900H	14	20	2.5	5	24MB
Core i9-13900HX	24	32	1.9	5.4	36MB
Core i9-14900HX	24	32	2.3	5.4	36MB
Ultra 9 185H	16	24	2.1	5	30MB

CPU	Cores	Threads	Base (GHz)	Boost (GHz)	Cache
Ryzen 9 4900H	8	16	3.3	4.4	8MB
Ryzen 9 4900HS	8	16	3	4.3	8MB
Ryzen 9 5900H	8	16	3.3	4.6	16MB
Ryzen 9 5900HX	8	16	3.3	4.6	16MB
Ryzen 9 5900HS	8	16	3	4.6	16MB
Ryzen 9 5980HX	8	16	3.3	4.8	20MB
Ryzen 9 6900HX	8	16	3.3	4.9	20MB
Ryzen 9 6900HS	8	16	3.3	4.9	20MB
Ryzen 9 6980HX	8	16	3.3	5	20MB
Ryzen 9 7845HX	12	24	3.7	5.2	32MB
Ryzen 9 7945HX	16	32	2.5	5.4	64MB
Ryzen 9 8945HS	12	24	3.8	5.3	32MB

Single-Thread Benchmnarks

The latest 13th and 14th gen Intel Core i9 CPUs outperform every other Ryzen 9 CPU in the single thread benchmarks.
Only the Ryzen 9 7945HX CPU is significantly faster than the Core i9 12900HX and close to the Core i9 13900HX.
It is likely that as the dataset of Ryzen 9 8945HS gets larger, the performance will get closer to the Core i9 14900HX.

Multi-Thread Benchmnarks

The Ryzen 9 7945HX completely blows the Core i9 14900HX and all other Core i9 CPUs out of the water in multithreaded benchmarks.
There’s not enough data for the upcoming 8th generation Ryzen 9 CPU but it is safe to assume the performance difference will be much much bigger.
Core i9 14900HX, Core i9 13900HX and Ryzen 9 7845HX have almost the same performance.
There’s a MASSIVE performance difference between the older CPUs ( 12th gen Intel Core i9 & 6th gen Ryzen 9 ) to the latest 13th, 14th gen Intel Core i9 and 7th gen Ryzen 9 CPUs.

Author Profile

Miguel Salas

I am physicist and electrical engineer. My knowledge in computer software and hardware stems for my years spent doing research in optics and photonics devices and running simulations through various programming languages. My goal was to work for the quantum computing research team at IBM but Im now working with Astrophysical Simulations through Python. Most of the science related posts are written by me, the rest have different authors but I edited the final versions to fit the site's format.