AMD Ryzen 5 4500U vs Intel Core i3-7100H vs Intel Core i5-7260U

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.

Intel Core i3-7100H

The Intel Core i3-7100H is a dual-core processor for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It is probably based on the quad-core die from the other H-series processor with two deactivated cores considering the TDP and the integrated HD Graphics 630. The two CPU cores run at 3GHZ without a Turbo, and the processor can execute up to four threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper Threading. It is also equipped with an Intel HD Graphics 630 GPU, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR4) as well as VP9 and H.265 video decoding as well as encoding. The chip is still manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architektur

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

Compared to the similarly branded, but much more efficient Core i3-7100U (2.4 GHz, 15-Watt TDP), the i3-7100H has much higher clocks and the performance is almost on par with theCore i5-7200U (2.5-3.1 GHz).

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 530) running at 350 - 950 MHz in this case. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration. Compared to HD 620 GPUs, the higher TDP could result in better sustained performance.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were announced in January, should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. The TDP is pretty high for a dual-core processor at 35 Watts, so the CPU is not suited fpr thin and light notebooks (where the i3-7100U comes into play).

Intel Core i5-7260U

The Intel Core i5-7260U is a fast dual-core SoC for notebooks and Ultrabooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. The CPU has two processor cores clocked at 2.2-3.4 GHz (two cores also up to 3.4 GHz). The processor can execute up to four threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper Threading. It is also equipped with an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 GPU with 64 MB eDRAM, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR4) as well as VP9 and H.265 video decoding as well as encoding. The chip is still manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Compared to the Core i7-7360U, the i5-7260 does have lower CPU (-200 MHz Turbo, -100 MHz Base) and GPU (-50 MHz) clocks.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

At 2.2-3.4 GHz, the Core i5-7260U has much lower clocks compared to the old Core i5-6267U (2.9-3.3 GHz), but has slightly higher Turbo clocks. Similar to the 6267U, the i6-7260U can also use the 64 MB eDRAM, which should increase the performance in some scenarios.

Graphics

The integrated Intel Iris Plus 640 Graphics is the GT3e model of the Kaby Lake GPU (Intel Gen. 9.5). It has 48 Execution Units running at 300-950 MHz (i7 models up to 1050 MHz) and the performance is comparable to a GeForce 920MX thanks to fast eDRAM cache. However, there aren't any significant improvements compared to the old Iris Pro 540, so modern games can often not be played smoothly or only at the lowest or medium settings, respectively.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby lake now also supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors announced in January should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, which is typical for ULV chips. Depending on the usage scenario, the TDP can vary between 7.5 (cTDP Down) and 25 Watts.