AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS vs Intel Core i7-1165G7 vs Intel Core i5-1145G7

AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS

The Ryzen 5 8640HS is a mid-range, Hawk Point family processor that was unveiled in Q4 2023. The 8640HS isn't actually a new chip; instead, it's a rebadged Ryzen 5 7640U with a slightly higher wattage as well as higher clock speeds on the Ryzen AI NPU. The 8640HS has 6 SMT-enabled cores (12 threads) running at 3.5 GHz to 4.9 GHz. Those Zen 4 architecture cores are mated to the Radeon 760M integrated graphics adapter.

Architecture & Features

Hawk Point chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips are. That's not to say there is no difference between the three. With Hawk Point, AMD is betting big on generative AI; these processors are set to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs.

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger caches/registers/buffers, is slated to deliver a double-digit IPC improvement over the former.

Elsewhere, the 8640HS has 16 MB of L3 cache and USB 4 support (therefore, Thunderbolt is supported as well). The chip is compatible with DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM which is still impressive as of late 2023.

A system powered by this Ryzen 5 will have access to twenty PCIe 4 lanes; this means a speedy enough NVMe SSD will be able to deliver speeds up to 7.8 GB/s.

Systems powered by this APU are expected to run 64-bit Windows 11, 64-bit Windows 10, or Linux. Like most laptop chips, the 8640HS is neither overclockable nor user-replaceable. It gets soldered to the motherboard for good (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

It's safe to expect the APU to be at least 15% faster than the Zen 3 Plus-powered Ryzen 5 6600U (6 cores, 12 threads, up to 4.5 GHz), 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 laptop is.

Graphics

The Radeon 760M has 8 CUs (512 shaders) running at up to 2,600 MHz. While not great for gaming (unless you are fine with resolutions such as 900p and low detail settings), the iGPU will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p. It also HW-decodes and HW-encodes the most widely used video codecs including AV1, HEVC, AVC without breaking a sweat.

Power consumption

The 8640HS has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W that laptop makers are free to change to anything between 20 W and 30 W. Most companies will probably go for a higher value to get better performance. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by the chip.

Last but not the least, the 8640HS is manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-1165G7

The Intel Core i7-1165G7 is an upper mid-range, quad-core SoC designed for use in ultra-thin laptops. The Tiger Lake-UP3 processor was unveiled in September 2020; its Hyper-Threading-enabled Willow Cove CPU cores run at 2.8 GHz (base clock speed @ 28 W TDP) to 4.7 GHz (single-core Boost frequency). The all-core Boost frequency sits at 4.1 GHz. This i7 was the second-fastest CPU of TGL-UP3 line-up when Intel initially launched the series in 2020.

The i7 is ever-so-slightly inferior to Intel Core i7-1185G7 in that vPro support is nowhere to be found, the clock speeds are lower, and the iGPU's clock speed is a little lower as well.

Architecture

A sizeable performance-per-MHz boost is one of the many benefits of Tiger Lake generation compared to the older Ice Lake and Comet Lake product families. Core i7-1165G7 is compatible with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4x-4267 RAM; Intel recommends using no more than 64 GB, for reference. The processor also supports PCI-Express 4.0 (4 lanes) and is capable of HW-accelerating certain AI workloads. Thunderbolt 4, USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 support is partially baked into the chip. Four PCI-Express 4.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

The i7 is built with the third-gen 10 nm Intel process marketed as SuperFin that is supposedly comparable to TSMC's 7 nm process, the one Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 series processors are manufactured on. Both the CPU cores and the iGPU have access to 12 MB of L3 cache. The SoC is supposed to be soldered straight on to the motherboard (BGA1449 socket interface); it is thus anything but user-replaceable.

Performance

The average i7-1165G7 in our database is just as fast as Intel's Core i5-10200H and Core i7-10810U are, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. The chip is brave enough to come dangerously close to the noticeably costlier i7-1195G7 while unfortunately not quite reaching the high bar set by the Ryzen 3 5300U. That being said, it's a very decent CPU that will have no trouble chewing through light video editing and 3D rendering jobs on the go with a bit of gaming possible as well, as of early 2022.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 40 W, the Schenker Vision 15 is among the fastest laptops built around the 1165G7 that we know of. It can be more than 60% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

The Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 EUs) is based on Intel's Generation 12 architecture. It is a lot faster than the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake) and UHD Graphics 620 (Comet Lake) solutions. The Xe has 96 Execution Units running at 400 MHz to 1,300 MHz, in the case of this Core i7.

This graphics adapter can drive up to 4 monitors in resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p@60 simultaneously, and the built-in video decoder is AV1-friendly. It will happily decode most other video codecs including HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and so on, too.

The Xe will let you play most games at 1080p / Low. It's nearly as fast as NVIDIA's GeForce MX350, surpassing anything we have seen from AMD's integrated graphics thus far. It is paramount that fast RAM is used as the Xe has no VRAM of its own. The other prerequisites for decent 3D performance are decently high Power Limits and a competent cooling solution.

Power consumption

The i7-1165G7 has a default TDP of 12 W to 28 W, the expectation being that laptop makers will go for a higher value to get higher clock speeds and thus better performance. Either way, these values are too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The i7 is built with Intel's third-generation 10 nm process marketed as SuperFin for decent, as of mid 2022, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i5-1145G7

The Intel Core i5-1145G7 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Tiger Lake-U generation that was announced early 2021. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP settings and ranges from 1.1 GHz (12 Watt TDP) up to 2.6 GHz (28 Watt). The Boost is always specified at 4.4 GHz (one or two cores).

Another novelty is the integrated Xe graphics card with 80 EUs based on the completely new Gen 12 architecture. It offers a significantly higher performance compared to the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake).

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (4 lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 and Wifi 6 in the chip. In addition to this, the i5 supports vPro for easy remote management.

The chip is produced on the improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel that should be comparable to the 7nm process at TSMC (e.g. Ryzen 4000 series).

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.