AMD Ryzen 5 4500U vs Intel Core i3-1005G1

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.

Intel Core i3-1005G1

The Intel Core i3-1005G1 is a power efficient dual-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Ice Lake-U generation that was announced in Mai 2019 (Computex). It integrates two Sunnycove processor cores (4 threads thanks to HyperThreading) clocked at 1.2 (base) - 3.4 GHz (single and dual core Turbo). According to Intel the Sunnycove cores achieve 18% more IPCs (Instructions per Clock).

Other improvements for Ice Lake are the AI hardware acceleration and the partial integration of Thunderbolt and Wifi 6 in the chip. The integrated DDR4 memory controller supports modules with up to 3200 MHz (and LPDDDR4 3733).

Performance

The average 1005G1 in our database is a disappointment, its multi-thread benchmark scores only matching those of Intel Core i5-7267U and AMD Ryzen 3 2300U. This is unfortunately in line with what we've been seeing from most other Ice Lake family processors. While not as slow as an Intel Celeron, a Core i3-1005G1 will still look out of place in anything but entry-level laptops and mini-PCs.

The biggest improvement for Ice-Lake is the integrated Gen 11 graphics processor called UHD Graphics G1. The Core i3-1005G1 integrates the smallest GPU, the UHD Graphics with 32 of the 64 EUs clocked at 300 - 900 MHz. The higher-end Iris Plus G4 and G7 offer higher clock speeds (up to 1100 MHz) and up to 64 EUs.

Power consumption

The Core i3 has a 15 W default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit), a value that laptop manufacturers are allowed to reduce slightly - 13 W being the lower limit - resulting in lower clock speeds and lower performance. Either way, that's a tad too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The dual-core Intel CPU is built with Intel's first-gen 10 nm process for average, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.