AMD Ryzen 7 5800H vs Intel Core i7-7600U vs Intel Core i5-7267U

AMD Ryzen 7 5800H

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800H is a high-performance octa-core processor of the Cezanne product family. It was released in Q1 2021; it is designed for use in larger laptops, primarily gaming laptops and DTRs. The Ryzen features eight SMT-enabled Zen 3 cores running at 3.2 GHz (base clock speed) to 4.4 GHz (highest Boost frequency possible) along with the Vega 8 iGPU. The chip has 16 MB of L3 cache.

Architecture

The Ryzen 7 5800H is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process, just like the outgoing Ryzen 7 4800H was; both CPUs have 8 cores and 16 threads, too. The underlying microarchitecture is what makes the two vastly different as the newer Zen 3 microarchitecture brings a massive IPC improvement over Zen 2. To be specific, AMD promises an increase of up to 19%, with independent reviews pointing to a lower (but sizeable nonetheless) 12% increase.

Ryzen 5 5800H supports dual-channel DDR4-3200 and quad-channel LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Unlike the desktop-grade Ryzen 5000-series processors, Ryzen 5 5800H does not support PCI-Express 4.0, meaning NVMe SSDs will be limited to read/write rates of 3.9 GB/s.

The CPU gets soldered straight on to the motherboard (FP6 socket interface) and is thus not user-replaceable.

Performance

The Ryzen is a marvel of a processor. As far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned, the average 5800H in our database trades blows with the Intel Core i5-12500H, Core i7-11800H, Core i7-12650H, Core i9-11950H and also the AMD Ryzen 9 4900H. Needless to say, a system built around this CPU will have little difficulty chewing through pretty much any workload imaginable for years to come.

With the long-term CPU power limit of 75 W, the Lenovo Legion 5 15ACH is among the fastest 5800H-toting laptops that we have tested; it can be at least 20% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest laptops built around the 5800H in our database such as the HP Victus 16 or the Asus ZenBook 14X OLED.

Graphics

In addition to its eight CPU cores, the APU has the Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics adapter. Just like the name suggests, Vega 8 features 8 Compute Units (8 x 64 = 512 unified shaders); in the case of Ryzen 7 5800H, the Vega runs at up to 2,000 MHz.

On paper, this iGPU is inferior to the 96 EU Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7. However, as is usually the case, synthetic benchmarks do not tell the entire story, as AMD's drivers are superior to those of Intel. As a result, the Vega will let you play a lot of games released in 2020 and 2021 at reasonable resolutions (up to Full HD 1080p) and Low to Medium presets. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is playable at 1080p (High), to give you an example. As the iGPU has no VRAM of its own, it is paramount that fast system RAM is used.

The graphics adapter definitely supports 2160p UHD monitors at 60 Hz. AVC, HEVC, MPEG-2, VP9-encoded videos can be hardware-decoded with the Vega but there is no AV1 support here; such a video will be software-decoded for much lower energy efficiency.

Power consumption

This AMD APU has a default TDP (also known as the long-term Power Limit) of 45 W that can be changed to anything between 35 W and 54 W by laptop makers, with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly as a result. No matter the exact value, an active cooling solution is a must.

The Ryzen 7 5800H is built with TSMC's 7 nm process for very decent, as of early 2022, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-7600U

The Intel Core i7-7600U is a fast dual-core processor for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. It integrates 2 CPU cores with Hyper-Threading support clocked at 2.8 - 3.9 GHz (2 core Turbo also 3.9 GHz). Besides two cores, the processor is also equipped with the HD Graphics 620 GPU as well as a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L-1600/DDR4-2400). It is manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

With 2.5 to 3.9 GHz, the Core i7-7600U clocks significantly higher than the old Core i7-6500U (2.5 - 3.1). That means, the i7-7600U is (at the time of announcement in beginning of 2017) the fastest dual core processor for laptops. The performance is sufficient for demanding tasks (except some games that may need four real cores).

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 520) running at 300 - 1150 MHz. The performance depends a lot on the memory configuration; it should be comparable to a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 920M in combination with fast DDR4-2133 dual-channel memory.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors, which were announced in January, should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel still specifies the TDP with 15 Watts, but it can also be reduced to 7.5 Watts by the notebook manufacturers (cTDP down). This will obviously affect the performance, because the Turbo Boost cannot be maintained for longer periods.

Intel Core i5-7267U

The Intel Core i5-7267U is a fast dual-core SoC for notebooks based on the Kaby Lake architecture and was announced in January 2017. The CPU has two processor cores clocked at 3.1-3.5 GHz (two cores also up to 3.5 GHz). The processor can execute up to four threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper Threading. It is also equipped with an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 GPU with 64 MB eDRAM, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR4) as well as VP9 and H.265 video decoding as well as encoding. The chip is still manufactured in a 14nm process with FinFET transistors.

Architecture

Intel basically uses the same micro architecture compared to Skylake, so the per-MHz performance does not differ. The manufacturer only reworked the Speed Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of voltages and clocks, and the improved 14nm process allows much higher frequencies combined with better efficiency than before.

Performance

The performance of the 28-Watt CPU should be on par with the Core i7-7500U (2.7-3.5 GHz, no eDRAM, 15 Watts), but it should be a bit slower on practice due to the missing level 4 eDRAM and the lower TDP. This means the i5 is still one of the faster dual-core processors and should be sufficient for most scenarios. Some games might still require a real quad-core processor and therefore nit run perfectly on the dual-core processor, despite Hyper Threading.

Graphics

The integrated Intel Iris Plus 650 Graphics is the GT3e model of the Kaby Lake GPU (Intel Gen. 9.5). It has 48 Execution Units running at 300-1050 MHz and the performance is comparable to a GeForce 920MX thanks to fast eDRAM cache. However, there aren't any significant improvements compared to the old Iris Pro 550, so modern games can often not be played smoothly or only at the lowest or medium settings, respectively.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby lake now also supports H.265/HEVC Main 10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec. The dual-core Kaby Lake processors announced in January should also support HDCP 2.2.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14nm process with FinFET transistors, which improves the efficiency even further. Intel specifies the TDP with 28 Watts, which can be reduced to 23 Watts (cTDP Down) depending on the usage scenario. The TDP is pretty high compared to the common 15-Watt TDP for dual-core processors, but allows a better utilization of CPU and GPU Turbo.