AMD Ryzen 5 4600H vs Intel Core i7-9850H vs AMD Ryzen 7 4800H

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 i7-9850H

The Intel Core i7-9850H is a high-end processor for laptops with six cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture (2019 refresh, CFL-HR). The processor clocks at between 2.6 and 4.6 GHz (4 GHz with 6 cores) and can execute up to twelve threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading. According to Intel, the CPU is manufactured in an improved 14nm (14nm++) process. Compared to the predecessor, the Core i7-8850H, the 9850H offers only improved clock rates.

The Coffee Lake architecture is similar to Kaby Lake and differs only in the amount of cores (now six cores for the high end versions) and the improved 14nm process (14nm++ according to Intel).

Performance

Due to the two additional cores, performance has increased by almost 50% compared to a similar clocked Kaby Lake processor like the Core i7-7920HQ (3.1 - 4.1 GHz). Single-core performance has not improved since its Kaby Lake predecessor. Compared to the i7-8850H, the performance improved only slightly.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer a slightly higher performance as its clock rate has been increased by 50 MHz (rumored). The architecture is identical to that of the Intel HD Graphics 630. We do expect a performance improvement, but as a low-end solution it will probably only display current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.

Power Consumption

Intel specifies the TDP with 45 watts and therefore the i7 is only suited for big laptops with good cooling solutions. Using cTDP-down, the CPU can also be configured to 35 Watt resulting in a reduced performance.

AMD Ryzen 7 4800H

The AMD Ryzen 7 4800H is a Renoir APU designed for larger, more powerful laptops with room for better termals. The Ryzen features eight Zen 2 cores running at 2.9 GHz (base clock speed) to 4.2 GHz (Boost). The CPU also has 8 MB of L3 cache and a Vega series integrated GPU. Thread-doubling SMT tech is enabled in this processor, allowing for up to 16 concurrent processing threads.

Architecture

Ryzen 7 4800H is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and in part thanks to this fact AMD promises an up to 2x higher performance-per-watt figure compared to Ryzen 3000 series mobile APUs. This isn't the only noteworthy change however as Zen 2 architecture is leagues ahead of the outgoing Zen+ when it comes to single-core performance. Renoir family processors feature up to 8 CPU cores compared to 4 cores of the previous generation mobile AMD CPUs.

A 4800H will work with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4-4266 RAM. The important difference between desktop Ryzen 4000 and mobile Ryzen 4000 processors is that the latter do not have PCI-Express 4.0 support, meaning those blazing-fast NVMe SSDs will be limited to a throughput of 3.9 GB/s.

The Ryzen 7 gets soldered straight to the motherboard (FP6 socket) and is thus not user-replaceable. Please go to our Renoir processor family hub for more information on these CPUs.

Performance

The average 4800H in our database is in the same league as the Core i7-11850H, the Core i7-1360P and also the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This highlights just how great of a job Renoir designers did, back in the day.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term power limit of 45 W, the MSI Alpha 17 A4DEK is among the fastest laptops built around the 4800H that we know of. It can be more than 20% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

Ryzen 7 4800H features the Radeon RX Vega 7, a 7 CU integrated graphics adapter running at up to 1,600 MHz. The iGPU's underlying architecture is fairly old as of 2021, yet its 448 shaders will let you play many games of 2020 and 2021 as long as you stick to reasonable resolutions and presets. F1 2021 runs well at medium quality, 1080p resolution, to give you an example. A Vega 7 can be as fast as a GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q, or as slow as an 80 EU Iris Xe; this depends on the benchmark as well as on cooling system performance and TDP settings of a laptop as mentioned above. As the iGPU has no VRAM of its own, it is paramount that fast system RAM is used.

The Vega definitely supports UHD 2160p monitors at 60 Hz. This iGPU is capable of hardware decoding AVC, HEVC and VP9-encoded videos. There is no AV1 support to be found here though. Such a video will have to be SW-decoded leading to much lower energy efficiency.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 45 W. Laptop makers are allowed to change that to anything between 35 W and 54 W, with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. The Ryzen 7 4800HS is a 35 W edition of the Ryzen 7 4800H that trades away a bit of performance for lower power consumption. In both cases, an active cooling solution is a must.

Both the 4800H and the 4800HS are built with TSMC's 7 nm process for decent, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.