AMD Ryzen 5 4500U vs Intel Core i7-1065G7

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 i7-1065G7

The Intel Core i7-1065G7 is a power efficient quad-core SoC of the Ice Lake U product family designed for thin laptops and Ultrabooks. It was announced in May 2019 (Computex). The CPU has four Sunnycove processor cores (8 threads thanks to Hyper-Threading) clocked at 1.3 (base) - 3.9 (single core Turbo) GHz. 2 cores can reach 3.8 GHz and all four 3.5 GHz using Turbo Boost. 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 Wi-Fi 6 in the chip. The integrated DDR4 memory controller supports modules with up to 3200 MHz (and LPDDDR4 3733).

The biggest improvement of Ice Lake is the integrated Gen 11 graphics adapter called Iris Plus Graphics. The Core i7-1065G7 integrates the biggest G7 variant with 64 EUs clocked at 300 - 1100 MHz. The Iris Plus G7 should be twice as fast as the predecessors and best the AMD Vega 10 GPU from current Ryzen APUs.

Performance

The average 1065G7 in our database is most comparable to the AMD Ryzen 7 2700U and the Intel Core i5-8259U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a so-so result and a direct consequence of Intel's inability to make the best of its brand-new 10 nm node. The Core i7-10710U, a 10th generation processor built with an older 14 nm process, will easily rip a 1065G7 to pieces. That said, the 1065G7 will surely beat a 10710U in terms of energy efficiency.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and sufficiently high CPU power limits, the Galaxy Book Flex 15-NP950 is among the fastest laptops powered by the 1065G7 that we know of. It can be around 40% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Core i7 has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 15 W. Laptop makers are free to change that value to anything between 12 W and 25 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. Either way, that's a tad too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The quad-core Intel CPU is built with Intel's second-gen 10 nm process (not 10 nm SuperFin or Intel 7) for average, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.