AMD Ryzen 5 4600H vs Intel Core i5-5200U

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 the Intel Core i7-10875H and even the Core i9-10885H, both significantly more costly chips, in multi-thread performance, giving this Ryzen an outrageously high price-to-performance ratio.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Power consumption

The Ryzen 5 chip has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 45 W, a value that laptop makers are free to change to anything between 35 W and 54 W with 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 7 nm TSMC process this APU is built with makes for better-than-average, as of early 2022, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i5-5200U

The Intel Core i5-5200U is an ULV (ultra low voltage) dual-core processor based on the Broadwell architecture, which has been launched in January 2015. In addition to two CPU cores with Hyper-Threading clocked at 2.2 - 2.7 GHz (2 Cores: 2.5 GHz), the chip also integrates an HD Graphics 5500 GPU and a dual-channel DDR3(L)-1600 memory controller. The Core i5 is manufactured in a 14 nm process with FinFET transistors.

Compared to the Core i5-5250U, the i5-5200U features a higher CPU base clock, but integrates a somewhat slower GPU.

Architecture

Broadwell represents the "Tick" in Intel's Tick-Tock model, which means a shrink of its predecessor Haswell. The new 14 nm manufacturing process with three-dimensional FinFET transistors allows not only improvements in energy efficiency, but also a significantly smaller die size fit for more compact packages and devices.

Further advantages result from the revised microarchitecture of Broadwell. Due to its improved branch prediction, bigger buffer sizes (1500 instead of 1000 entries in the L2 TLB) and other tweaks, the performance per clock has been increased by more than 5 percent over its predecessor. There are also some new instruction set extensions designed for cryptographic applications.

Performance

Thanks to its improved architecture, the Core i5-5200U ends up 5 - 15 percent faster than the slightly lower clocked Core i5-4200U and matches the Core i5-4300U (both Haswell). Thus, the CPU has sufficient power for office and multimedia purposes as well as more demanding applications and multitasking.

Graphics

The integrated HD Graphics 5500 offers 24 Execution Units (EUs) clocked at 300 - 900 MHz. Similar to the CPU core, the GPU architecture (Intel Gen 8) has been thoroughly revised for improved performance-per-clock. Therefore, the HD Graphics 5500 is able to beat the HD Graphics 4400 (20 EUs) as well as the HD Graphics 5000 (40 EUs), both part of the Haswell generation. Nevertheless, most games as of 2015 will be playable only in low settings.

Broadwell is the first Intel chip to fully support DirectX 11.2 as well as OpenCL 1.3/2.0 and OpenGL 4.3. Video will output natively via DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a. However, the new HDMI 2.0 standard is not supported.

Power Consumption

The i5-5200U is rated at a TDP of 15 W (7.5 W cTDP Down) including the graphics card, memory controller, VRMs and the integrated chipset. Therefore, the CPU is suited even for small ultrabooks 11-inches and greater.