AMD Ryzen 5 4500U vs AMD Ryzen 9 4900H vs AMD Ryzen 7 4800U

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 nearly matches the Core i5-11300H, the Core i5-11320H and also the AMD Ryzen 3 5300U as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned - thus delivering an undeniably impressive performance jump over the outgoing Ryzen 5 3500U.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term power limit of 38 W, the Xiaomi RedmiBook 16 R5 is among the fastest systems powered by the R5 4500U that we know of. It can be about 20% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system built around the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

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

This Ryzen chip is very energy efficient, as of mid 2022, thanks to the cutting-edge 7 nm TSMC manufacturing process and the mature Zen 2 architecture.

The 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 laptop makers if required, a right they use more often than not. Clock speeds and performance will change accordingly as a result. By going for the lowest value, it will be possible to use the APU as the heart of a passively cooled tablet, laptop, mini-PC.

AMD Ryzen 9 4900H

The AMD Ryzen 9 4900H is a mobile SoC for big laptops based on the Renoir architecture. At the time of announcement in March 2020 it is the fastest model of the 4000H series. The R9 4900H integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to  4.4 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured in the modern 7 nm process at TSMC and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips

According to our information, the Ryzen 9 4900H is only slightly faster than the Ryzen 7 4800H. The CPU is clocked 400 MHz (base +14%) to 200 MHz (boost +5%) higher, but the gains greatly depend on the cooling and TDP settings. Compared to Intel chips, the i9-9980HK top model should be comparable. That means the Ryzen 9 4900H should be able to handle all demanding tasks and gaming.

In addition to the eight CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 8 integrated graphics card with 8 CUs. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 12 MB level 3 cache can be found on the chip. See our hub page on the Renoir Processors for more information.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 45 Watt (default). That means the chip is intended for big and relatively heavy laptops.

AMD Ryzen 7 4800U

The AMD Ryzen 7 4800U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4800U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 1.8 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.2 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured in the modern 7 nm process at TSMC and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips. Compared to the similar named Ryzen 7 4800H, the 4800U offers a lower TDP (15 versus 45 Watt) and base clock (1.8 versus 2.9 GHz).

According to AMD, the Ryzen 7 4800U is 4% faster in Cinebench R20 single thread test and 90 % faster in the multithreaded test compared to the fast Intel Core i7-1065G7 (Ice Lake, 4 cores, 3.9 GHz). This means the CPU should be one of the fastest processors in the 15 Watt TDP range and well suited for demanding tasks. The sustained performance however ist strongly depending on the cooling system and the TDP settings of the laptop.

In addition to the eight CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 8 integrated graphics card with 8 CUs and up to 1750 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.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 15 Watt (default) and can be configured from 10 to 25 Watt by the laptop vendor. That means the chip is intended for thin and light laptops (but with fans).