AMD Ryzen 5 7530U vs Intel Pentium 8500 vs Intel Core i7-1260U

AMD Ryzen 5 7530U

The AMD Ryzen 5 7530U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne generation. It is part of the second "Barcelo" refresh in early 2023 and offers 200 MHz higher boost clock for the CPU cores compared to the old Ryzen 5 5625U (but a slower base clock speed). The R5 7530U integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture. The cores are clocked at 2 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (single core boost) and support SMT for a total of 12 threads. The chip is manufactured in 7 nm at TSMC.

Performance

The average 7530U in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 5 5625U, Ryzen 7 4800U, Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U, Core i5-1335U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 37 W, the VivoBook 15X OLED M3504YA is among the fastest laptops built around the 7530U that we know of. It can be roughly 40% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 7 (now only called Radeon Graphics) integrated graphics card with 7 CUs at up to 2 GHz. 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.

Power consumption

This Ryzen has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the Power Limit 1).

Intel Pentium 8500

The Intel Pentium 8500 is an entry-level low-power mobile CPU for thin and light laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers one performance core (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 4 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 6 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 1 to 4.4 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.7 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 8 MB L3-cache. Compared to the faster Core i3-1210U, the Pentium offers one less P-core.

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 8500 as of August 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be about 20% slower than the i3-1215U, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. Which is pretty terrible 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.

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 48 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.8 GHz.

Power consumption

This Pentium has a Base power consumption of 9 W, with 29 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. TDP values this low allow for passively cooled laptops, tablets, mini-PCs as long as performance is not a priority.

The CPU is made with Intel's 3rd generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-1260U

The Intel Core i7-1260U is a 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 1.1 to 4.7 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.8 to 3.5 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. The 1260U offers "Enterprise" vPro management features. Compared to the P-series (28W) or H-series (45W), or even the 15W U-series, the 9W TDP will limit the sustained performance.

Performance

Compared to the old 7 Watt Comet Lake-Y series (like the i7-10510Y), the performance should be clearly better thanks to the 10 cores and the improved architecture of the P-cores. Compared to the 15 W U-series (like the similar specified Core i7-1265U) the sustained performance will be clearly limited by the 9 Watt TDP. As always, the performance will also greatly depend on the cooling solution, especially for fanless laptops and tablets.

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 card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers all 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.95 GHz.

Power consumption

This 12th gen Core i7 processor has a Base power consumption of 9 W, with 29 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. It is built with Intel's 2nd gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent energy efficiency.