AMD Ryzen 5 4500U vs AMD Ryzen 5 4600H

AMD Ryzen 5 4500U

The AMD Ryzen 5 4500U is an upper mid-range, hexa-core processor of the Renoir product family. The APU was unveiled in H1 2020; it is designed for use in thinner, lighter laptops. Its six Zen 2 CPU cores run at 2.3 GHz (base clock speed) to 4.0 GHz (highest Boost frequency possible). Ryzen 5 4500U features the Vega 6 iGPU.

The sole advantage of Ryzen 5 4600U over Ryzen 5 4500U is the thread-doubling SMT technology support. The former has SMT while the latter does not.

Architecture

Zen 2 is a resounding success, delivering massive improvements over outgoing Zen Plus-based processors. Ryzen 5 4500U is manufactured on the cutting-edge 7 nm TSMC process; it is compatible with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4-4266 memory. This processor has 8 MB of Level 3 cache.

While the APU uses Zen 2 cores just like the desktop-grade Ryzen 3000-series processors do, Ryzen 7 3800XT included, it does does not have PCI-Express 4.0 support. It does feature several PCI-Express 3.0 lanes for connecting discrete graphics cards, SSDs and other devices. Four PCI-Express 3.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 3.9 GB/s provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

Ryzen 5 4500U gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (FP6 socket interface) and is anything but user-replaceable.

Performance

The average Ryzen 5 4500U in our database matches Intel's Core i5-11300H, Core i5-11320H and AMD Ryzen 3 5300U, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. This is a very potent 15 W CPU delivering an undeniably impressive performance jump over the outgoing Ryzen 5 3500U.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the Power Limits and how competent the cooling solution of your laptop are.

Graphics

Just like its name suggests, the Radeon RX Vega 6 graphics adapter has 6 Compute Units (6 x 64 = 384 unified shaders). In the case of Ryzen 5 4500U, this graphics adapter runs at up to 1,500 MHz. The iGPU definitely supports UHD 2160p monitors at 60 Hz; it will have no trouble HW-decoding HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and other widespread video codecs. AV1 is not supported though; such a video will have to be software-decoded for much lower energy efficiency.

Vega 6 will let you play many titles of 2020 and 2021 as long as you stick to low settings and low resolutions. F1 2021 (720p, Low) runs at 32 fps; Outriders (720p, Low) runs at 27 fps, to give you an example or two. As the iGPU has no VRAM of its own, it is paramount that fast system RAM is used.

Power Consumption

The Ryzen is very energy-efficient, as of mid-2022, thanks to the cutting-edge 7 nm TSMC process and its mature architecture.

Ryzen 5 4500U 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 an OEM if required, a right they use more often than not. Clock speeds and performance will change correspondingly as a result. Either way, the chip is a tad too power-hungry to be used as a heart of a passively cooled tablet, laptop, mini-PC.

AMD Ryzen 5 4600H

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600H is a mobile SoC for big laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4600H integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (12 threads).

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 6 integrated graphics adapter with 6 CUs and up to 1500 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 4600H in our database matches Intel Core i7-10875H and even Core i9-10885H, both significantly more costly processors, in multi-thread performance, giving this Ryzen an outrageously high price-to-performance ratio. A mid-range gaming laptop built around Ryzen 5 4600H is guaranteed to put a smile on your face every time you launch a game.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 5 has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 45 W, a value that laptop manufacturers are free to change to anything between 35 W and 54 W witch clock speed and performance changing accordingly as a result. Either way, a high-performance cooling solution is a must for a CPU like this.

The fairly modern 7 nm TSMC process this Ryzen is built with makes for better-than-average, as of mid-2022, energy efficiency.