AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7730U vs Intel Core i5-7300U

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7730U

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7730U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne generation. It is part of the second "Barcelo" refresh in early 2023 and offers the same specifications as the old Ryzen 7 5825U. The CPU integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture clocked at 2 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured in 7nm at TSMC. In comparison to the similar Ryzen 7 7730U, the PRO variant is aimed at business use and supports additional manageability and security features.

The Zen 3 microarchitecture offers significantly higher IPC (instructions per clock) compared to Zen 2 but falls behind the current Zen 4-based CPUs (e.g., 7040HS series).

Performance

The average 7730U in our database performs similarly to the Ryzen 7 5825U, Ryzen 7 6800U, Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U, and also the Core i7-1360P concerning multi-thread benchmark scores.

In addition to the eight CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 8 GPU with 8 CUs operating at up to 2000 MHz. The dual-channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy-efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, a 16 MB level 3 cache (up from 8 MB on the 4800U) can be found on the chip.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 15 Watts (compared to the 5825U, which was specified between 10 and 25W).

Intel Core i5-7300U

The Intel Core i5-7300U 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 2.6 - 3.5 GHz (2 core Turbo also 3.5 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 3.5 GHz, the Core i5-7300U clocks significantly higher than the old Core i5-7200U (2.5 - 3.1) and Core i5-6200U (2.3 - 2.8 GHz). Thanks to the fast Turbo frequency, the performance should be slightly below to the Core i7-7500U (2.7 - 3.5 GHz, but 4 MB L3 cache). Therfore, the performance is sufficient for demanding tasks.

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 620 has 24 Execution Units (similar to previous HD Graphics 520) running at 300 - 1100 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.