Intel Pentium 8500 vs AMD Ryzen 7 5700U vs Intel Core i5-1230U

Intel Pentium 8500

The Intel Pentium 8500 is an entry-level low-power mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers one performance core (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 4 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 6 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1 to 4.4 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.7 to 3.3 GHz on the efficient cluster. 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 8 MB L3-cache. Compared to the faster Core i3-1210U, the Pentium offers one less P-core.

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 8500 as of August 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be about 20% slower than the i3-1215U, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. Which is pretty terrible as of Q3 2023.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 48 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.8 GHz.

Power consumption

This Pentium has a Base power consumption of 9 W, with 29 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. TDP values this low allow for passively cooled laptops, tablets, mini-PCs as long as performance is not a priority.

The CPU is made with Intel's 3rd generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700U

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700U is an APU of the Lucienne product family designed for leaner laptops. The Ryzen features eight Zen 2 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz (base clock speed) to 4.3 GHz (Boost) as well as a Vega 8 iGPU. Thread-doubling SMT tech is enabled in this CPU for up to 16 concurrent processing threads.

Architecture

In spite of what its name may suggest, Ryzen 7 5700U is not a Zen 3 part, meaning this is a Ryzen 4000 series mobile processor in disguise. Nevertheless, the CPU is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and its performance as well as energy efficiency figures are very strong compared to what Intel currently has to offer in this segment.

The Ryzen 7 features 8 MB of Level 3 cache. Its built-in memory controller is designed to work with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Unlike the desktop Ryzen 5000 processors, Ryzen 7 5700U does not support PCI-Express 4.0, meaning those speedy NVMe SSDs will be limited to read/write rates of 3.9 GB/s.

The Ryzen gets soldered directly to the motherboard (FP6 socket) and is thus not user-replaceable.

Performance

The average 5700U in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 7 4800U, Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U, Core i7-1365U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 35 W, the Schenker VIA 15 Pro is among the fastest laptops built around the 5700U that we know of. It can be roughly 50% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

In addition to its eight CPU cores, Ryzen 7 5700U features a Radeon RX Vega series graphics adapter with 8 CUs (= 512 shaders) running at up to 1,900 MHz. This iGPU trails behind the 96 EU Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 in synthetic benchmarks, yet its real-world performance is good enough for many games released in 2020 and 2021 at reasonable resolutions (up to Full HD 1080p) and low to medium quality. As the Vega has no VRAM of its own, it is paramount that fast system RAM is used.

The graphics adapter definitely supports UHD 2160p monitors at 60 Hz, and will gladly HW-decode AVC, HEVC and VP9-encoded videos. There is no AV1 support here though.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 15 W; laptop makers are free to change that to anything between 10 W and 25 W, with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. Most companies will go for a higher value to extract more performance out of the APU. By choosing the lowest value, it will be possible to build a passively cooled system around the chip, too.

The 7 nm TSMC process the R7 5700U is built with makes for decent, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i5-1230U

The Intel Core i5-1230U is a mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 2  performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 12 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1 to 4.4 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.7 to 3.3 GHz on the efficient cluster. 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 12 MB L3 cache.  Compared to the similar Core i5-1240U, the 1230U offers a lower base CPU clock speed and only "Essentials" vPro management features.

Performance

Compared to the old 7 Watt Comet Lake-Y series (like the i7-10510Y), the performance should be clearly better thanks to the 10 cores and the improved architecture of the P-cores. Compared to the 15 W U-series (like the similar specified Core i5-1235U) the sustained performance will be clearly limited by the 9 Watt TDP. As always, the performance will also greatly depend on the cooling solution, especially for fanless laptops and tablets.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 80 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.85 GHz.

The CPU is rated at 9 W base power (TDP, PL1) and 29 W max. Turbo power (PL2) and the whole SoC is manufactured on a 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7.