AMD A6-9220 vs Intel Core i7-7600U

AMD A6-9220

The AMD A6-9220 is an entry-level chip from the Stoney-Ridge APU series for notebooks (7th APU generation), which was announced mid 2016. The 9210 is a mid-range Stoney Ridge processor (dual-core version of Bristol Ridge) and integrates two CPU cores (one Excavator module with 2 integer and on FP unit) clocked between 2.5 - 2.9 GHz. It also includes a Radeon R4 GPU, probably with 192 shaders at 655 MHz, as well as a single-channel DDR4-2133 memory controller, H.265 video engine and chipset with all I/O ports.

Architecture

Stoney Ridge is the successor of the Carrizo architecture and the design is almost identical. Thanks to optimized manufacturing processes and more aggressive Boost behavior, however, the clocks are a bit higher at the same power consumption. The memory controller now also supports DDR4-RAM, in this case up to 2133 MHz. Stoney Ridge is the designation for the smaller dual-core and single-core chip, while Bristol Ridge is the bigger quad-core chip with dual-channel memory controller. More technical details are available in the following articles:

• AMD's Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge Architecture
• AMD: Bristol Ridge APUs announced

Performance

Because of the significantly lower clock range, the A6-9220 should be noticeably slower than the A9-9410. In the Cinebench R15 Multi benchmark e.g. it was around 15% slower in our benchmarks (see below). The single core benchmarks were quite similar overall.

Graphics Card

The integrated Radeon R4 (Stoney Ridge) GPU is probably similar to the R5 with 192 active shader units (3 compute cores), but a reduced clock of just 655 instead of 800 MHz. More details about the GPU are available in the linked articles above. 

Power Consumption

AMD specifies the TDP of the A6-9220 with 15 Watts, but it can be configured between 10-15 Watts. This means the APU is a good choice for thin and light notebooks.

Intel Core i7-7600U

The Intel Core i7-7600U is a fast dual-core processor for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It integrates 2 CPU cores with Hyper-Threading support clocked at 2.8 - 3.9 GHz (2 core Turbo also 3.9 GHz). Besides two cores, the processor is also equipped with the HD Graphics 620 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

With 2.5 to 3.9 GHz, the Core i7-7600U clocks significantly higher than the old Core i7-6500U (2.5 - 3.1). That means, the i7-7600U is (at the time of announcement in beginning of 2017) the fastest dual core processor for laptops. The performance is sufficient for demanding tasks (except some games that may need four real cores).

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 520) running at 300 - 1150 MHz. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration; it should be comparable to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 920M in combination with fast DDR4-2133 dual-channel memory.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were announced in January, should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, but it can also be reduced to 7.5 Watts by the notebook manufacturers (cTDP down). This will obviously affect the performance, because the Turbo Boost cannot be maintained for longer periods.