AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U vs Intel Core i5-1230U vs AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U

AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U

The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U is a processor for thin and light laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The Ryzen has six out of a possible 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 TSMC process. The Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U is the professional version of the consumer R5 6600U with additional management features and the Microsoft Pluton Security processor. Compared to the similar R5 6650H, the 6850U offers a lower base clock speed and a lower TDP.

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 6650U in our database is very close to the Core i7-1260P and the Core i7-10870H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a really good result, as of late 2022.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 32 W, the ThinkPad T16 G1 is among the fastest laptops built around the 6650U that we know of. It can be about 20% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

In the 6000 series, AMD finally switched to the current RDNA 2 graphics architecture for the iGPU. The 6650U only offers the small Radeon 660M with 6 of the 12 CUs enabled and 1.9 GHz max. clock rate.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 15 - 28 Watts (default). The power efficiency should be very good, thanks to the improved 6nm process and additional power saving features in the 6000 series.

Intel Core i5-1230U

The Intel Core i5-1230U 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 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 12 MB L3 cache.  Compared to the similar Core i5-1240U, the 1230U offers a lower base CPU clock speed and only "Essentials" vPro management features.

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 i5-1235U) 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 80 of the 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.85 GHz.

The CPU is rated at 9 W base power (TDP, PL1) and 29 W max. Turbo power (PL2) and the whole SoC is manufactured on a 10nm process at Intel, which is known as Intel 7.

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U is a processor for thin and light laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The R7 6850U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 2.7 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.7 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm TSMC process. The Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U is the professional version of the consumer R7 6800U with additional management features and the Microsoft Pluton Security processor. Compared to the similar R7 6850H, the 6850U offers a lower base clock speed and a lower TDP.

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 2.2 GHz.

Performance

The average 6850U in our database is in the same league as the Core i5-1340P, the Core i7-1360P and also the Ryzen 7 5825U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a really fast chip, as far as 2023 consumer laptops go.

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

This Ryzen 7 has a default TDP of 15 W to 28 W, the expectation being that laptop manufacturers will go for a higher value in exchange for higher performance. Either way, this is a little too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The APU is built with TSMC's 6 nm process for great, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.