AMD Ryzen 5 5625U vs Intel Core i5-1245U

AMD Ryzen 5 5625U

The AMD Ryzen 5 5625U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne generation. It is part of the "Barcelo" refresh in early 2022 and offers 100 MHz higher boost clock for the CPU cores compared to the old Ryzen 5 5600U. The R5 5625U integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture and is the third fastest U-5000-series processor at launch. The cores are clocked at 2.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.3 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT for a total of 12 threads. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process.

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 7 integrated graphics card with 7 CUs at up to 1800 MHz. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 16 MB level 3 cache (up from 8 MB at the 4800U) can be found on the chip.

Performance

The average 5625U in our database is in the same league as the Core i5-1255U, Core i5-1335U, Core i5-1345U and also the Ryzen 5 7530U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a decent result, as of Q3 2023.

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 Ryzen has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the Power Limit 1). Which is a little too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The APU is built with TSMC's 7 nm process for higher-than-average, as of mid-2022, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i5-1245U

The Intel Core i5-1245U is a mid-range mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 2 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 12 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1.6 to 4.4 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.2 to 3.3 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6700HQ). All cores can use up to 12 MB L3 cache. Compared to the i7-1265U (fastest U-series CPU at launch), the 1245U offers lower clock speeds, a slower iGPU, but the full "Enterprise" vPro management features. Compared to the P-series (28W) or H-series (45W), the 15W TDP may limit the sustained performance.

Performance

Thanks to the 10 cores, the multi-threaded performance should be clearly faster than the older quad-core Tiger Lake CPUs with 15 Watt (like the Intel Core i7-1160G7). The sustained performance will be limited by the TDP setting and thermals and therefore only short term loads. Thanks to the architectural improvements of the big Golden Cove cores, the single thread performance should be better than similar clocked Tiger Lake CPUs.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 80 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.2 GHz.

The CPU is rated at 15 W base power (TDP, PL1) and 55 W max. Turbo power (PL2) and the whole SoC is manufactured on a 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7.