AMD Ryzen 3 4300U vs AMD Ryzen 5 4680U vs AMD Ryzen 7 4700U

AMD Ryzen 3 4300U

The AMD Ryzen 3 4300U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4300U integrates four cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture (quad core CPU). They are clocked at 2.7 (guaranteed base clock) to 3.7 GHz (Turbo) without SMT / Hyperthreading support (4 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips. Compared to the faster Ryzen 5 4000 CPUs (e.g., Ryzen 5 4600U), the Ryzen 3 only offers 4 cores and lower Turbo clock speeds.

In addition to the four CPU cores, the APU also has the Radeon RX Vega 5 integrated graphics card with 5 CUs and up to 1400 MHz. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 4 MB of Level 3 cache can be found on the chip. See our hub page on the Renoir Processors for more information.

Performance

The average 4300U in our database matches Intel Core i5-1035G4 and Core i5-11300H, both noticeably more power-hungry quad-core processors, in multi-thread performance. Technically a lower mid-range CPU, this Ryzen is light years ahead of Intel Pentiums and AMD Athlons that so many sub-US$500 laptops have.

Power consumption

The Ryzen 3 has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 15 W, a value that laptop manufacturers are free to change to anything between 10 W and 25 W with performance and clock speeds changing correspondingly. The 7 nm TSMC process this AMD APU is built with makes for very good energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 4680U

The AMD Ryzen 5 4680U is a semi-custom APU of the Renoir family designed for Microsoft devices. The 4680U integrates six CPU cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture clocked at 2.2 GHz (base) to 4 GHz (Boost) with SMT support for a total 12 threads. The two advantages a 4680U has over the older Ryzen 5 4600U are its higher base clock speed and a faster iGPU.

Architecture

The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and in part thanks to this fact, AMD advertises a 2x performance per watt improvement over the 12 nm Ryzen 3000 mobile processors. The built-in dual-channel memory controller supports LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 8 MB of L3 cache can be found on the chip.

Just like the other mobile Ryzen 4000 CPUs, a 4680U supports PCI-Express 3.0. Please go to our Renoir processor hub page for additional information on the product family.

Performance

Multi-thread performance is most comparable to AMD Ryzen 7 4700U and Intel Core i5-10500H, the latter being a much more power-hungry CPU. This makes the Ryzen a more than decent CPU for most tasks, more demanding ones included.

Graphics

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a DX 12 compatible Radeon RX Vega 7 graphics adapter with 7 CUs (448 unified shaders) at up to 1,500 MHz. The Vega iGPU will have no trouble HW-decoding AVC, HEVC and VP9 videos, but the newer AV1 codec will only be decoded via software. In terms of gaming, we are looking at an MX150-level performance. Pretty much all games released in 2020 can be played on low to medium settings in 720p on this graphics adapter.

Power Consumption

This Ryzen 5 has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the long-term power limit), a value that laptop manufacturers - Microsoft, in this case - are free to set to anything between 10 W and 25 W, with clock speeds and performance changing correspondingly. Indeed, we saw the CPU consuming roughly 23 watts when being stress tested.

The 7 nm TSMC process this Ryzen is built with makes for very, very decent energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 7 4700U

The AMD Ryzen 7 4700U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4700U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 2 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.1 GHz (Turbo). There is no support for the thread-doubling SMT tech. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips. Compared to the faster R7 4800U, the 4700U offers slightly lower clock speeds and no support for SMT / Hyperthreading.

In addition to the eight CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 7 integrated graphics card with 7 CUs and up to 1600 MHz. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 8 MB level 3 cache can be found on the chip. See our hub page on the Renoir Processors for more information.

Performance

The average 4700U in our database proves to be a rather competent little processor, exchanging shots with the much more power-hungry Intel Core i7-10750H as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. While it fails to get far enough away from Ryzen 5 4600U, this Ryzen 7 is still a good CPU for upper mid-range laptops of the thinner, lighter kind as well as high-performance mini-PCs.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 is a 15 W chip. However, laptop manufacturers are allowed to change the value to anything between 10 W and 25 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly. We are talking about the default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, here; the processor's short-term power consumption can be much higher than that.

The fairly modern 7 nm TSMC process this CPU is manufactured on makes for above average energy efficiency.