AMD FX-9830P vs Intel Core i7-7600U vs Intel Core i3-7020U

AMD FX-9830P

The AMD FX-9830P is a mobile mainstream SoC from the Bristol-Ridge APU series for notebooks (7th APU generation), which was announced mid 2016. The FX-9830P is the fastest Bristol Ridge APU with a 45-Watt TDP and the successor to the 15-35-Watt FX-8800P from the Carrizo generation. The chip has four CPU cores (two Excavator modules = 4 integer and 2 FP units), a Radeon R7 GPU as well as a dual-channel DDR4-1866 memory controller. Carrizo is a full-fledged SoC and is also equipped with an integrated chipset, which provides all I/0 ports.

Architecture

Bristol 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 2400 MHz. More technical details are available in the following articles:

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

Performance

Thanks to higher clocks, the FX9830P is slightly ahead of the old 35-Watt top model FX-8800P and competes with the entry-level dual-cores from Intel (Skylake and Kaby Lake). Compared to the Intel model, the AMD chip has a small advantage in multi-thread scenarios, but is beaten when you only stress one or two cores.

This means there is sufficient performance for typical office and web applications as well as light multitasking.

Graphics Card

The integrated Radeon R7 (Bristol Ridge) GPU has 512 active shader units (8 compute cores) clocked at up to 900 MHz (compared to 758 MHz for FX-9800P). Thanks to the better utilization of the clock range as well as faster DDR4-RAm, the GPU can slightly beat its predecessors Radeon R7 (Carrizo) and competes with a dedicated GeForce 920MX in the best-case scenario (dual-channel memory). Many games from 2015/2016 can be played smoothly at low settings. 

Power Consumption

AMD specifies the TDP of the FX-9830P with 25-45 Watts, which is comparable to Intel quad-core processors from the H-series. This means the APU is a good choice for big and heavy notebooks with at least 15 inches.

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.

Intel Core i3-7020U

The Intel Core i3-7020U is a dual-core processor of the Kaby Lake architecture. It offers two CPU cores clocked at 2.3 GHz (without Turbo Boost) and integrates HyperThreading to work with up to 4 threads at once. The architectural differences are rather small compared to the Skylake generation, therefore the performance per MHz should be very similar. The SoC includes a dual channel DDR4 memory controller and Intel HD Graphics 620 graphics card (clocked at 300 - 1000 MHz). It is manufactured in an improved 14nm FinFET process at Intel. Compare to the old i3-7100U, the newer i3-7020U is clocked 100 MHz lower (CPU cores) and therefore the current entry level model for the Core i3 line. The similar Pentium Gold 4415U offers less Cache (2 versus 3 MB) and a slower GPU.

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.