AMD Ryzen 7 7840U vs AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS

AMD Ryzen 7 7840U

The Ryzen 7 7840U is a powerful laptop processor (APU) of the Phoenix product family. Its eight Zen 4 cores run at 3.3 GHz to 5.1 GHz and are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads. The great Radeon 780M is responsible for 3D processing and similar duties; the 7840U also features Ryzen AI which is AMD's answer to Intel's GNA and DL Boost.

Architecture & Features

Phoenix family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Dragon Range family chips are. The latter however lacks hardware AI workload acceleration capabilities that Phoenix has.

More importantly, 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.

Elsewhere, the 7840U has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM. The chip is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt. It comes with 20 PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds of up to 7.8 GB/s.

Systems built around the 7840U are designed to run 64-bit Windows 11, 64-bit Windows 10, or Linux. Please note that this processor is not overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered down for good instead (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

The average 7840U in our extensive database is about as fast as the Core i7-12650H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This means the Ryzen 7 APU packs quite a wallop, as of mid 2023.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 35 W, the Framework Laptop 13.5 is among the fastest systems powered by the 7840U that we know of. It can be about 30% faster than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of December 2023.

Graphics

The Radeon 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) purring away at up to 2,700 MHz. This is exactly the right iGPU for people looking for a bit more horsepower than what Intel's aging Xe options can provide. The Radeon will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p and it will also HW-decode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs (including AV1, HEVC and AVC) without breaking a sweat. In terms of gaming, the thing is good enough for 1080p and medium-to-low settings, as of late 2023.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of your system is, how fast the RAM of your system is (there is no dedicated VRAM here).

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W. Laptop makers are free to change that value significantly, with values as low as 15 W and as high as 30 W greenlighted by AMD. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by this chip.

The 7840U is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS

The Ryzen 5 7640HS is an upper mid-range processor (APU) of the Phoenix product family. It was brought to life in H1 2023 and it has 6 SMT-enabled Zen 4 cores (12 threads) running at 4.3 GHz to 5.0 GHz. The laptop chip is one of the first to feature Ryzen AI, AMD's answer to Intel's DL Boost and GNA technologies. The Radeon 760M iGPU is responsible for carrying out 3D calculations and similar duties.

Architecture & Features

Phoenix family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Dragon Range family chips are. The latter however lacks hardware AI workload acceleration capabilities that Phoenix has.

More importantly, Zen 4 introduces AVX512 support (Zen 3-powered chips did not have that) 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.

Elsewhere, the 7640HS has 16 MB of L3 cache and a super-fast DDR5-5600 / LPDDR5x-7500 RAM controller. USB 4 (and thus Thunderbolt) is supported natively and so is PCIe 4. In fact, 20 PCIe 4 lanes are on offer; data transfer speeds of up to 7.8 GB/s will be possible provided a sufficiently fast NVMe SSD is used.

Systems powered by this Ryzen 5 series chip are expected to run 64-bit Windows 11, 64-bit Windows 10, or Linux. Please note that the APU is not overclockable and neither will you be able to replace it with a faster one as it gets soldered down permanently (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

The average 7640HS in our database is about as fast as the Ryzen 9 5900HX, Ryzen 7 6800H, Ryzen 7 7736U and also the Core i5-12500H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a good if not record-breaking result as of mid 2023. Such a CPU will handle pretty much any task you can throw at it, gaming included.

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 760M has 8 CUs (512 shaders) running at up to 2,600 MHz. While this is not the best graphics adapter for gaming as it's only just fast enough for low quality settings and resolutions such as 1600 x 900, it will let you connect up to four SUHD 4320p monitors and it also HW-encodes and HW-decodes the most widely used video codecs such as AV1, HEVC and AVC.

Power consumption

The 7640HS has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving laptop makers a choice between improving battery life and giving the system they are working on more oomph. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by this chip.

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