AMD Ryzen 7 3700U vs Intel Core i7-8850H

AMD Ryzen 7 3700U

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700U is a mobile SoC that was announced in January 2019. It combines four Zen+ cores (8 threads) clocked at 2.3 GHz to 4 GHz with a Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics adapter with 10 CUs (640 shaders) clocked at up to 1,400 MHz. Specified at 15 Watt TDP, the SoC is intended for thin mid-range laptops. In Chromebooks, AMD calles the APU AMD Ryzen 7 3700C, but with the exact same specifications (and performance).

The Picasso SoCs use the Zen+ microarchitecture with slight improvements that should lead to a 3% IPC (performance per clock) improvements.

The integrated dual-channel memory controller supports up to DDR4-2400 memory. As the features of the Picasso APUs are the same compared to the Raven Ridge predecessors, we point to our Raven Ridge launch article.

Performance

The average 3700U in our database is a solid mid-range CPU as of early 2021, its multi-thread benchmark scores matching those of the Core i5-10310U and the Core i5-1035G7 (the Ryzen 5 PRO 3500U is found close nearby as well). This Ryzen 7 is good for more than just binge-watching Netflix and writing e-mails. Just do not expect it to be as fast as a Core i7-11800H.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and sufficiently high CPU power limits, the ThinkPad E595 is among the fastest laptops powered by the 3700U that we know of. It can be up to 50% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the long-term power limit). This can be changed by a laptop manufacturer to anything between 12 W and 35 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. Either way, that's a little too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

Last but not the least, the Ryzen 7 3700U is manufactured on a 12 nm process for lower-than-average, as of mid-2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-8850H

The Intel Core i7-8850H is a high-end processor for laptops with six cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture and will be announced early 2018. The processor clocks at between 2.6 and 4.3 GHz (4.1 with 4 cores, 4 GHz with 6 cores) and can execute up to twelve threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading. According to Intel, the CPU is manufactured in an improved 14nm (14nm++) process.

The Coffee Lake architecture is similar to Kaby Lake and differs only in the amount of cores (now six cores for the high end versions) and the improved 14nm process (14nm++ according to Intel).

Performance

Due to the two additional cores, performance has increased by almost 50% compared to a similar clocked Kaby Lake processor like the Core i7-7920HQ (3.1 - 4.1 GHz). Single-core performance has not improved since its Kaby Lake predecessor. As a high-end model, the i7-8850H is suitable for the most demanding applications and games.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer a slightly higher performance as its clock rate has been increased by 50 MHz (rumored). The architecture is identical to that of the Intel HD Graphics 630. We do expect a performance improvement, but as a low-end solution it will probably only display current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.

Power Consumption

Intel specifies the TDP with 45 watts and therefore the i7 is only suited for big laptops with good cooling solutions. Using cTDP-down, the CPU can also be configured to 35 Watt resulting in a reduced performance.