Intel Processor N97 vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800U

Intel Processor N97

The Intel Processor N97 is an entry-level mobile CPU for thin and light laptops from the Alder Lake-N series. It was announced in early 2023 and offers no performance cores and 4 of the 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The chip does not support HyperThreading and clocks with up to 3.7 GHz. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 6 MB L3-cache. 

Performance

The performance should be between the Intel Processor N100 and Intel Processor N200 and clearly below the Core i3-N300 and N305 due to the reduced core count. 

Features

The Alder Lake-N chips only support single channel memory with up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200 or LPDDR5-4800. The chip also supports Quick Sync and AV1 decoding (most likely same engine as in Alder Lake). Furthermore, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 are partly integrated (but no Thunderbolt). External chips can be connected via PCIe Gen3 x9 (via the PCH).

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers only 24 of the 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at 1200 MHz. Due to the single channel memory, low clock speeds, and low shader count, the gaming performance of the iGPU is very limited.

Power consumption

The N97 has a base power consumption of 12 W and therefore double the amount of the N100. The CPU is built with a further improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel (called Intel 7).

AMD Ryzen 7 5800U

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne generation. The R7 5800U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture and is the fastest U-series processor at launch. They are clocked at 1.9 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.4 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process.

The new Zen 3 microarchitecture offers a significantly higher IPC (instructions per clock) compared to Zen 2. For desktop processors AMD claims 19 percent on average and in applications reviews showed around 12% gains at the same clock speed.

In addition to the eight CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 8 GPU with 8 CUs at up to 2000 MHz. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 16 MB level 3 cache (up from 8 MB at the 4800U) can be found on the chip.

Performance

The average 5800U in our database matches the Core i5-11260H and, perhaps a little disappointingly, the Ryzen 7 4800U in multi-core performance.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 22 W, the ProBook x360 435 G8 is among the fastest laptops powered by the 5800U that we know of. It can be more than 10% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 15 W, a value that laptop makers are allowed to change to anything between 10 W and 25 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. Choosing the lowest value would allow one to build a passively cooled system around the Ryzen, however, most laptop manufacturers will do the opposite to extract as much performance out of the chip as possible.

The Ryzen 7 5800U is built with TSMC's 7 nm process for average, as of mid 2023, energy efficiency.