AMD Ryzen 5 7540U vs Apple M2 Pro vs AMD Ryzen 3 7440U

AMD Ryzen 5 7540U

The AMD Ryzen 5 7540U is a fast mid-range laptop processor of the Phoenix series. It offers 6 cores (hexa core) based on the Zen 4 architecture that supports hyperthreading (12 threads). The cores clock from 3.2 (base) up to 4.9 GHz (single core boost). The processor includes 6 MB L2 cache and 16 MB L3 cache.

Thanks to the new Zen 4 architecture and higher clock speeds, the R5 7540U is clearly faster than the old Ryzen 5 6600U (Zen 3, 6 cores, 4.5 GHz). Compared to the similar 7640U, the 7540U offers a lower base clock and a slower iGPU.

The chip integrates a modern and fasts RDNA 3 graphics card (iGPU) called Radeon 740M with 4 of the 12 CUs and 2.5 GHz clock speed. Furthermore, the Phoenix series include a video engine with AV1 de- and encoding and a dual-channel DDR5-5600 / LPDDR5x-7500 memory controller (with ECC support). The new Xilinx FPGA based XDNA AI accelerator (Ryzen AI) is not included in the 7540U. The connectivity features includes 2 possible USB 4 (40 Gbps) ports and 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes for a GPU and SSDs.

The Phoenix series uses a single monolithic design (unlike the chiplet design of the 7045HX series) and is manufactured in the modern 4nm process at TSMC. The TDP can be configured between 15 and 30 Watt (28 Watt default).

Apple M2 Pro

The Apple M2 Pro is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the early 2023 MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models. It offers all 12 cores available in the chip divided in eight performance cores (P-cores) and four power-efficiency cores (E-cores). The E-cores clock with up to 3.4 GHz, the P-Cores up to 3.7 GHz (mostly 3.3 GHz in multi-threaded workloads and 3.4 GHz in single threaded).

The big cores (codename Avalanche) offer 192 KB instruction cache, 128 KB data cache, and 36 MB shared L2 cache (up from 24 MB in the M1 Pro). The four efficiency cores (codename Blizzard) are a lot smaller and offer only 128 KB instruction cache, 64 KB data cache, and 4 MB shared cache. CPU and GPU can both use the 24 MB SLC (System Level Cache). 

The unified memory (16 or 32 GB LPDDR5-6400) next to the chip is connected by a 256 Bit memory controller (200 GB/s bandwidth) and can be used by the GPU and CPU.

Apple states that the M2 Pro has a 25% higher performance than the M1 Pro in Xcode compiling.

The integrated graphics card in the M1 Pro offers all 19 cores.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a fast 16 core neural engine (faster than M1 Pro), a secure enclave (e.g., for encryption), a unified memory architecture, Thunderbolt 4 controller, an ISP, and media de- and encoders (including ProRes).

The M2 Pro is manufactured in 5 nm at TSMC (second generation) and integrates 40 billion transistors. 

AMD Ryzen 3 7440U

The Ryzen 3 7440U is an oddball Phoenix family processor (APU) that has one Zen 4 core and three Zen 4c cores working together. This lower mid-range chip saw the light of day in H1 2023; it offers 8 threads, since all of the cores are SMT-enabled, and a base clock speed of 3.0 GHz. The highest Boost clock speed that a 7440U can run at is 4.7 GHz.

Unlike its faster and costlier brethren, this Ryzen 3 series chip features the Radeon 740M integrated graphics adapter instead of the more powerful 760M or 780M options. It also comes with no Ryzen AI support.

Architecture & Features

Phoenix family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Dragon Range family chips are. Zen 4 introduces some rather solid AVX512 support (which Zen 3 chips did not have) and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger caches/registers/buffers across the board, is set to bring a double-digit IPC improvement.

The 7440U has 8 MB of L3 cache and support for various flavours of DDR5 RAM, up to DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500. It is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt; PCI-Express support is limited to the 4.0 spec which means speeds up to 7.8 GB/s are possible provided a fast NVMe SSD is used. There is no Ryzen AI functionality here which is, much like replacing full-fat Zen 4 cores with more compact Zen 4c cores, a way for AMD to get the costs down.

OS support is limited to 64-bit Windows 11 and Windows 10 editions and of course to Linux. The chip is not overclockable, and neither can you replace it with a faster one as it gets soldered down for good (FP7 or FP7r2 socket interface).

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 7440U as of late 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be about as fast as hexa-core Ryzen 4000U options (these are powered by Zen 2) such as the Ryzen 5 4600U, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned.

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

Graphics

The Radeon 740M has 4 CUs (256 shaders) purring away at up to 2,500 MHz. This iGPU will let you connect up to four SUHD 4320p monitors and it is capable of both decoding and encoding most video codecs including AVC, HEVC and AV1. Its gaming performance is fairly unimpressive, as of late 2023; running simpler titles such as CS:GO in resolutions such as HD 720p is the best it can do for you.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 3 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W that laptop makers are free to tune. Values between 15 W and 30 W are possible; most companies will probably go for a higher value to get higher performance.

The 7440U is built with TSMC's 4 nm* process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.