AMD Ryzen 5 2500U vs AMD 3020e vs AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G

AMD Ryzen 5 2500U

The AMD Ryzen 5 2500U is a mobile APU for thin and light laptops that was announced in October 2017. It includes four Zen cores clocked at 2 to 3.6 GHz and offers 4 MB L3-Cache. The integrated graphics card is called Radeon RX Vega 8 and offers 8 CUs (512 Shaders) clocked at up to 1100 MHz. The TDP is configurable between 12 and 25 Watt (15 Watt nominal). More information on Raven Ridge can be found in our launch article.

AMD 3020e

The AMD 3020e (Codename Dali) is a mobile APU that integrates two Zen cores (without SMT, therefore 2 threads) clocked at 1.2 to 2.6 GHz. The TDP is specified at 6 Watt and therefore the chip can be passively cooled. The integrated Radeon graphics card offers 3 CUs at up to 1,000 MHz (Radeon RX Vega 3). The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-2400.

More information on Raven Ridge product family can be found in our launch article.

Performance

The average 3020e in our database sits close to the Celeron N4100 and the Core m3-8100Y, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. Neither of the three is a performance monster, their fairly low power consumption figures being their main advantage.

Much like the two Intel chips, the 3020e will let you binge-watch Netflix and type e-mails but anything tougher than that will bring the APU to its limits quickly.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are.

Power consumption

This little APU has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 6 W. Which is low and thus good enough for tablets, laptops and mini-PCs featuring no active cooling solution.

The AMD 3020e is built with a 14 nm process leading to low, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G

The AMD Ryzen Embedded R1606G is a dual-core SoC designed for embedded systems that was announced in March 2019. It is similar to the Ryzen 3 3200U (or the 2200U with slightly increased clock speed) and based on the first generation of the Zen architecture. The Ryzen features two Zen cores with support for the thread-doubling SMT tech, clocked at 2.6 GHz - 3.5 GHz. The built-in Radeon RX Vega 3 iGPU has 3 CUs (192 unified shaders) clocked at up to 1,200 MHz. The default TDP is 15 W which makes the Ryzen a good fit for thin mid-range laptops.

In comparison to the faster Ryzen 3000 CPUs, the 3200U and therefore the R1606G is not using the newer Zen+ microarchitecture and is still manufactured in 14nm. Compared to the old Ryzen 3 2200U, the 3200U and R1606G therefore only offers a 100 MHz higher clock speed.

The R1606G is compatible with single-channel or dual-channel DDR4-2400 RAM. Please go to our Raven Ridge launch article for details on the architecture and more.