AMD Ryzen 5 4600HS vs Intel Core i3-1125G4

AMD Ryzen 5 4600HS

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600HS is a mobile SoC for big laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4600HS 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). The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips. Compared to the similar named Ryzen 5 4600H, the 4600HS is the power efficient version with a TDP of 35 Watt (10 Watt less).

Due to the two deactivated cores and the slower Turbo clock speed, the Ryzen 5 4600HS should be significantly slower than the Ryzen 7 4800HS. The old top model Ryzen 7 3750H is still clearly slower due to the four Zen+ cores. Compared to the competition, the Intel Core i7-8850H (6-core Coffee Lake 2.6 - 4.3 GHz) should offer a similar performance.

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 6 integrated graphics card 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.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 35 Watt (default). Although the TDP is 10 Watt lower than the Ryzen 5 4600H, the chip is still intended for big and relatively heavy laptops. 

Intel Core i3-1125G4

The Intel Core i3-1125G4 is a 28 W quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks of the Tiger Lake family (UP3) that was introduced in September 2020. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to Hyper-Threading). Each core can clock from 2 GHz (guaranteed base speed @ 28 W) to 3.7 GHz (single-core boost). All cores at once can clock at up to 3.3 GHz. The faster Core i7 models offer more Level 3 cache (12 versus 8 MB in the i5) and higher clocked cores.

Another novelty is the integrated Xe GPU based on the completely new Gen 12 architecture. In the i3-1125G4 Intel names the GPU UHD Graphics and offers only 48 of the 96 EUs clocked at 400 - 1250 MHz. The GPU and CPU can together use the 8 MB of L3 cache.

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (four lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 in the chip.

Performance

While we have not tested a single laptop built around the 1125G4 as of October 2023, we expect the chip's multi-thread performance to be 10% to 20% lower than that of the Core i5-1135G7 (4 cores, 8 threads, somewhat higher clock speeds).

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

This Core i3 series chip has a default TDP of 12 W to 28 W, the expectation being that laptop makers will go for a higher value in exchange for higher performance. Either way, that's a little too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The i3-1125G4 is manufactured on Intel's third-gen 10 nm process marketed as SuperFin for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.