AMD Ryzen 5 3580U vs AMD Ryzen 5 5500U vs AMD Ryzen 5 3450U

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.

AMD Ryzen 5 5500U

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500U is a hexa-core APU of the Lucienne product family designed for use in ultra-thin, upper mid-range laptops. The processor was unveiled in H1 2021; its six CPU cores are based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. The cores run at 2.1 GHz (base clock speed) to 4 GHz (highest Boost frequency possible) and feature the thread-doubling SMT technology for a total of 12 threads. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process.

One could be forgiven for thinking Ryzen 5 5500U is a renamed Ryzen 5 4500U - which is not the case. Ryzen 5 5500U is most similar to Ryzen 5 4600U, the most noteworthy difference between the two being the faster iGPU model of the former.

In the meantime, Ryzen 5 5600U got a little more lucky; it is based on the newer Zen 3 architecture and it also has higher clock speeds than what a 5500U can boast of.

Architecture

While Ryzen 5 5500U and Ryzen 7 5700U are Zen 2-based processors, the neighbouring Ryzen 5 5600U and Ryzen 7 5800U use AMD's brand-new Zen 3 architecture. This makes the former two a generation older than their names suggest. Still, Zen 2 is nothing to sneeze at, with its high performance-per-Watt and performance-per-MHz figures.

Ryzen 5 5500U supports dual-channel DDR4-3200 and quad-channel LPDDR4-4266 RAM and has 8 MB of Level 3 cache. Unlike desktop-grade Ryzen 5000-series processors, Ryzen 5 5500U is limited to PCI-Express 3.0 (not PCI-Express 4.0; no 7.9 GB/s NVMe SSDs here).

The processor gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (FP6 socket interface) and is thus not user-replaceable.

Performance

Multi-thread performance is most comparable to the Ryzen 7 4700U and the Core i7-10850H, which is nothing to sneeze at. The Ryzen will have no trouble chewing through pretty much any workload, as of mid 2022.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of around 27 W, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14ALC05-82HU006NGE is among the fastest laptops built around the 5500U that we know of. It can be more than 30% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

The Radeon RX Vega 7 iGPU has 7 CUs at its disposal (64 x 7 = 448 unified shaders) running at up to 1,800 MHz. Its real-life performance is close to what we've seen from GeForce MX250 and Iris Xe Graphics G7 (80 EUs); Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021) runs well at 1080p resolution, low-to-medium settings, to give you an example. As the iGPU 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. It will have no trouble HW-decoding HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and other popular video codecs. There is no AV1 support; AV1-encoded videos will be software-decoded, which six Zen 2 cores will handle with ease.

Power consumption

The APU has a default TDP (also known as the long-term Power Limit) of 15 W. That can be changed to anything between 10 W and 25 W by laptop makers and in many cases they do go for a value higher than 15 W to achieve higher performance levels. On the other hand, by going for the lowest value, it will be possible to build a passively cooled system around the Ryzen 5.

The R5 5500U is manufactured using TSMC's 7 nm process for average, as of mid 2023, average efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 3450U

The AMD Ryzen 5 3450U is a mobile SoC that was announced in Q2 2020 as a refresh. It combines four Zen+ cores (8 threads) clocked at 2.1 GHz to 3.5 GHz (-200 MHz versus 3500U) with a Radeon RX Vega 8 iGPU with 8 CUs (512 Shaders) clocked at up to 1200 MHz.

The Picasso SoC uses the Zen+ microarchitecture with slight improvements that should lead to a 3% IPS (performance per clock) improvements. Furthermore, the 12 nm process allows for higher clocks at similar power consumption.

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 3450U in our database is in the same league as the Core i3-1115G4 and also the Ryzen 3 4300U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a better-than-expected result for an aging lower mid-range chip that is the 3450U, as of mid 2022.

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

Power consumption

The Ryzen 5 has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 15 W, a value that laptop manufacturers are allowed to change to anything between 12 W and 35 W if required with clock speeds and performance changing correspondingly. These values are fairly high, making active cooling solutions something of a necessity.

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