AMD A6-9220C vs Intel Core i3-8130U

AMD A6-9220C

The AMD A6-9220C is an entry-level chip from the Stoney-Ridge APU series for Chromebooks (7th APU generation from 2016), which was announced early 2019. Compared to the A6-9220, the 9220C is rated at a reduced TDP of 6 versus 15 Watt and also reduced clock speeds. It integrates two CPU cores (one Excavator module with 2 integer and on FP unit) clocked between 1.8 - 2.7 GHz (versus 2.5 - 2.9 GHz on the A6-9220).

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 speed, the A6-9220C should be noticeably slower than the old A6-9220. AMD compares the performance against the Pentium N4200 in ChromeOS and sees the A6-9220C clearly ahead. The efficiency should be worse however, due to the old manufacturing process.

Graphics Card

The integrated Radeon R4 (Stoney Ridge) GPU is a bit controversal, as AMD states 3 compute cores which should translate to 192 shaders.

Power Consumption

AMD specifies the TDP of the A6-9220C with 6 Watts which should enable thin and light (even fanless) Chromebooks.

Intel Core i3-8130U

The Intel Core i3-8130U is a power efficient dual-core SoC for notebooks and Ultrabooks (most likely) based on the Kaby Lake Refresh generation (and not Coffee Lake). It was announced in February 2018. Compared to its direct predecessor, the Core i3-7130U, the 8130U offers Turbo Boost for an increased single thread performance. The GPU is now named Intel UHD Graphics 620 but otherwise identical to the Intel HD Graphics 620. The integrated memory controller supports DDR4-2400 / LPDDR3-2133 and dual channel memory.

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

Clocked at 2.2 to 3.4 GHz, the Core i3-8130U offers a much better single core performance than the Core i3-7130U (2.7 GHz, no Turbo). Therefore, the overall performance should be comparable to the older Core i5-7260U (also 2.2 - 3.4 GHz). The Core i5-8250U offers four processor cores and therefore offers a much better multi-threaded performance.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Intel Gen 9.5) is untouched from the 8th Gen Kaby Lake chips. In the Core i3-8130U it is rather low clocked with 1 GHz compared to the 1.1 GHz in Core i7 models. With fast dual-channel memory it can reach the performance of a dedicated GeForce 920M.

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

Power Consumption

The chip is most likely manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors (14nm+), the same as the 7th Gen Kaby Lake processors. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, which is typical for ULV chips. According to Intel it can be configured to 10 Watt at 800 MHz (cTDP-down).