AMD Athlon Silver 10 vs AMD Athlon Silver 7120U

AMD Athlon Silver 10

The AMD Athlon Silver 10 is a mobile processor of the Mendocino series for affordable laptops. It features two Zen 2 cores (similar to the Ryzen 4000 series). The CPU cores clock from 2.4 GHz (base) to 3.5 GHz (single-core Turbo) and can use 2 MB of L3 cache. The Athlon Silver does not support SMT/Hyper-Threading and therefore can only execute 2 threads simultaneously.

The Athlon Silver 10 is pretty much a renamed AMD Athlon Silver 7120U from 2022 and should offer an identical performance (although this depends on cooling and TDP settings). The Athlon supports just 4 PCIe 3 lanes meaning AMD does not want laptop makers to mate this APU to dedicated graphics.

The integrated memory controller only supports LPDDR5 memory (5500 MT/s max.). Compared to faster Mendocino models like the Ryzen 5 7520U, this one offers only two cores, no SMT, less L3 cache and reduced clock speeds, leading to a clearly lower CPU performance that's only just good enough to compete with lowly quad-core N-series Intel CPUs from 2023.

The integrated graphics adapter named Radeon 610M uses the RDNA 2 architecture with only 2 CUs (128 shaders) onboard running at up to 1.9 GHz.

Mendocino series chips are produced with a somewhat dated 6nm FinFET process by TSMC. The Athlon Silver has a 15-W base TDP and therefore is well-suited for thin-and-light laptops, preferably with a fan.

AMD Athlon Silver 7120U

The AMD Athlon Silver 7120U is a mobile processor for cheap laptops of the Mendocino series. It integrates two older Zen 2 cores (similar to the Ryzen 4000 series). The CPU cores clock from 2.4 GHz (base) to 3.5 GHz (single core Turbo) and can use 2 MB L3 cache. The Athlon Silver does not support SMT/Hyperthreading and therefore can only work on 2 threads simultaneously. The integrated memory controller only supports fast LPDDR5 memory (5500 MHz max.). Compared to the faster Mendocino models like the Ryzen 5 7520U, the 7120U offers only two cores, no SMT, less L3 cache and reduced clock speeds, leading to a clearly lower CPU performance.

The integrated graphics card (Radeon 610M iGPU) uses the modern RDNA 2 architecture, but only 2 CUs (128 shaders) and clocks with up to 1.9 GHz.

The CPU performance should be to the fastest Ryzen dual-core (Ryzen 3 3250U, 2.6 - 3.5 GHz, Zen 1) but clearly stay behind modern quad-core CPUs (in multi threaded tests).

The Mendocino series are produced in a relatively modern 6nm FinFET process at TSMC and should offer a good power efficiency. The Athlon Silver 7120U is rated at 8-15 W TDP and therefore well suited for thin and light laptops.