AMD Ryzen 5 3580U vs Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y

AMD Ryzen 5 3580U

The AMD Ryzen 5 3580U, a Microsoft Surface Edition chip, is a mobile SoC that was announced in October 2019 as part of the Surface Book 15. It combines four Zen+ cores (8 threads) clocked at 2.2 - 3.8 GHz with a Radeon RX Vega 9 graphics adapter with 9 CUs (576 Shaders) clocked at up to 1300 MHz. Compared to the similar Ryzen 5 3500U, the 3580 integrates a faster GPU with 9 instead of 8 CUs.

The Picasso SoCs use the Zen+ microarchitecture with slight improvements that should lead to a 3% IPS (performance per clock) improvements. Furthermore, the 12nm process allows higher clock rates at similar power consumptions.

The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR4-2400 memory. As the features of the Picasso APUs are the same compared to the Raven Ridge predecessors, we point to our Raven Ridge launch article.

Performance

The average 3580U in our extensive database is in the same league as the Core i5-1035G7 and also the Core i7-10510U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a fairly decent result, as of mid 2021.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 5 has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 15 W, a value that laptop manufacturers - or should we say, Microsoft - are allowed to change to anything between 12 W and 35 W with clock speeds and performance changing correspondingly. Those values are not low enough to allow for fan-free designs, for better or worse.

The CPU is built with a fairly old, as of late 2022, 12 nm process for lower-than-average energy efficiency.

Intel Pentium Gold 4415Y

The Intel Pentium 4415Y is a low power entry level processor for small laptops or tablets and based on the Kaby Lake architecture. It was announced in Q2 2017 and offers two processor cores clocked at 1.6 GHz (no Turbo Boost). Thanks to Hyper Threading, the processor can execute up to four threads simultaneously. The chips also includes the Intel HD Graphics 615 GPU, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L/LPDDR3) as well as VP9 and H.265 video de- and encoder. It is still produced in a 14 nm process with FinFET transistors. Compared to the much faster Core m3-7Y30, the Pentium 4415 offers no Turbo Boost, different CPU and GPU clock speeds, a smaller L3 cache and a higher TDP of 6 Watt.

Architecture

Intel basically used the familiar micro architecture from the Skylake generation, so the per-MHz performance is identical. Only the Speed-Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of the voltages and clocks was improved, and the matured 14 nm process now also enables much higher frequencies and better efficiency than before. 

Performance

Due to the missing Turbo Boost, the Pentium 4415Y offers a significantly worse single thread performance than the more expensive Core m3-7Y30. This should be noticeable in daily tasks.

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 615 GPU has 24 Execution Units (EUs) like the old HD Graphics 515 and runs with clocks between 300 and 850 MHz in combination with this processor. The performance heavily depends on the TDP limit as well as the memory configuration; with fast LPDDR3-1866 RAM in dual-channel mode, the GPU should sometimes be able to compete with the HD Graphics 520, but can also be much slower in other scenarios. Modern games from 2016 will, if at all, only run smoothly in the lowest settings.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now also supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14 nm process with FinFET transistors, so the power efficiency was once again improved significantly. The TDP is rated at 6 Watt and can be reduced to 4,5 Watt (cTDP down).