AMD Ryzen 5 6600HS vs AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS

AMD Ryzen 5 6600HS

The AMD Ryzen 5 6600HS is a processor for big (gaming) laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The R5 6600HS integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (12 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm TSMC process. The HS variant is notable for its 10 W lower TDP than the usual 45 W and therefore a lower sustained performance than the H version.

The new Zen 3+ is a refresh of the Zen 3 architecture and should not offer a lot of changes. The chip itself however, offers a lot of new features, like support for USB 4 (40 Gbps), PCI-E Gen 4, DDR5-4800MT/s or LPDDR5-6400MT/s, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE 5.2, DisplayPort 2, and AV1 decode.

Performance

The average 6600HS in our database pretty much matches the Ryzen 5 5600H, the Ryzen 7 5800U and also the Core i7-1260P in multi-thread performance. Whish if fairly impressive, as of late 2022.

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

In the 6000 series, AMD finally switched to the current RDNA 2 graphics architecture for the iGPU. The 6600HS only offers the slower Radeon 660M with 6 of the 12 CUs enabled and 1.9 GHz max. clock rate.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 35 Watts making the Ryzen 5 better suited for thin and light laptops. The power efficiency should be very good, thanks to the improved 6nm process  and additional power saving features in the 6000 series.

AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS

The AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS is a processor for big (workstation) laptops based on the Rembrandt generation. The R9 6950HS integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.9 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm TSMC process. The HS variant offers a 10 W lower TDP and therefore a lower sustained performance than the HX version. Professional version of the consumer R7 6800HS with additional managment features and the Microsoft Pluton Security processor.

The new Zen 3+ is a refresh of the Zen 3 architecture and should not offer a lot of changes. The chip itself however, offers a lot of new features, like support for USB 4 (40 Gbps), PCI-E Gen 4, DDR5-4800MT/s or LPDDR5-6400MT/s, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE 5.2, DisplayPort 2, and AV1 decode.

A big novelty is the integrated GPU Radeon 680M, that is now based on the RDNA2 architecture and offers 12 CUs at up to 2.4 GHz. It should be the fastest iGPU of all at the time of announcement.

Performance

The average 6950HS in our database is in the same league as the Intel Core i7-1280P, AMD Ryzen 9 4900H, Intel Core i7-11800H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned - which puts it somewhat behind the mighty 12th Gen Alder Lake-H processors. This Ryzen 9 series chip is still more than good enough for proper gaming on the go as well as content creation, as of mid 2022.

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 has a default TDP of 35 W (also known as PL1). That's too high to allow for a passively cooled design.

The APU is built with TSMC's 6 nm process for great, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.