AMD Ryzen 5 6600U vs Intel Core i9-11900K

AMD Ryzen 5 6600U

The AMD Ryzen 5 6600U is a processor for thin and light laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The Ryzen packs six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 2.9 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (12 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm process at TSMC. Compared to the similar R5 6600H, the 6600U offers a lower base clock speed and a lower TDP.

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

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 6600U in our database matches the Ryzen 7 5800U in multi-thread performance, making this Ryzen 5 series chip a great CPU for most activities as of mid 2023.

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

Power consumption

This Ryzen 5 series chip has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 15 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 too much to allow for passively cooled designs.

The R5 6600U is manufactured on TSMC's 6 nm manufacturing process for good, as of mid 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i9-11900K

The Intel Core i9-11900K is a high-end desktop CPU based on the Rocket Lake architecture. The CPU offers 8 cores and 16 threads clocked at 3.5 - 5.3 GHz (Turbo Boost 3.0 / TVB). With Turbo Boost 2.0, 5.1 GHz can be reached with a single thread. Using all cores, the CPU can clock up to 4.8 GHz. Adaptive Boost enables even higher multi-core frequencies (5.1 GHz all core Turbo) but uses a lot more power.

The TDP is rated at 125 Watt (PL1, power limit sustained load) but the PL2 is set to around 250 Watt for short term boosts (up to 56 seconds).

The Sunny Cove processor cores (known from the Ice Lake mobile CPUs) offer larger caches and an improved IPC (up to 19%). Furthermore, the chip also includes (partly) integrated WiFi 6E and Thunderbolt 4. The platform supports PCIe 4.0 and Intel DL Boost for AI acceleration.

The faster Rocket Lake-S CPUs also integrate a new Intel UHD Graphics 750 that is based on the current Intel Xe architecture (e.g. mobile Tiger Lake) and offers 32 EUs. In the 11900K, the GPU is clocked from 350 - 1300 MHz.

Performance

The average 11900K in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. Which is an impressive result, as of mid 2022, and good enough for any task imaginable including content creation and professional gaming.

Power consumption

This Core i9 has a 125 W TDP, also known as the long-term power limit. Intel lets PC manufacturers reduce that value somewhat if required, 95 W being the lower limit, which would result in lower clock speeds and lower performance. The reality is, an 11900K can be much more power hungry than either of the two numbers imply simply because of its sheer might but also because it is manufactured on an old 14 nm Intel process that makes for lower-than-average, as of mid-2022, energy efficiency.