AMD Ryzen 9 270 vs Intel Core i5-1230U vs Intel Core i7-1260U
AMD Ryzen 9 270
► remove from comparison
The Ryzen 9 270 is a rebadged Ryzen 9 8945HS, making it a fast mobile laptop processor. This is an APU of the Hawk Point family that has eight Zen 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz to 5.2 GHz. This APU was introduced at CES 2025 and all of its cores are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads.
Architecture and Features
Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips were. The 16 TOPS NPU present here isn't powerful enough for systems built around the 9 270 to be Copilot+ certified.
Elsewhere, the chip has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM while also being compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt. It comes with 20 PCIe 4 lanes, giving fast NVMe SSD up to 7.8 GB/s of throughput.
Please note that this processor is not overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered to the motherboard for good instead (FP8 socket interface).
Performance
Its CPU performance is slated to be identical to the old Ryzen 9 8945HS and R9 7940HS.
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 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) purring away at up to 2,800 MHz. 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 (such as AV1, HEVC and AVC) without breaking a sweat. As for gaming, most 2024 games run fine at 1080p with settings set to Low on this graphics adapter.
Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of the system is, how fast the RAM of the system is (there is no dedicated VRAM here).
Power consumption
This Ryzen 9 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving laptop makers a choice between longer battery life and higher performance. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.
The R9 270 is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for a reasonably good, as of early 2025, energy efficiency.
Intel Core i5-1230U
► remove from comparison
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.
Intel Core i7-1260U
► remove from comparison
The Intel Core i7-1260U 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 1.1 to 4.7 GHz on the performance cluster and 0.8 to 3.5 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. The 1260U offers "Enterprise" vPro management features. Compared to the P-series (28W) or H-series (45W), or even the 15W U-series, the 9W TDP will limit the sustained performance.
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 i7-1265U) 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 all 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 0.95 GHz.
Power consumption
This 12th gen Core i7 processor has a Base power consumption of 9 W, with 29 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. It is built with Intel's 2nd gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent energy efficiency.
| Model | AMD Ryzen 9 270 | Intel Core i5-1230U | Intel Core i7-1260U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Hawk Point-HS (Zen 4) | Alder Lake-U | Alder Lake-U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | AMD Hawk Point (Zen 4/4c) | Intel Alder Lake-M | Intel Alder Lake-M | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Alder Lake-M Alder Lake-U |
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| Clock | 4000 - 5200 MHz | 700 - 4400 MHz | 800 - 4700 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 512 KB | 928 KB | 928 KB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 8 MB | 9.5 MB | 9.5 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 16 MB | 12 MB | 12 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 16 8 x 5.2 GHz AMD Zen 4 | 10 / 12 | 10 / 12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 45 Watt | 9 Watt | 9 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 4 nm | 10 nm | 10 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Die Size | 178 mm2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | 100 °C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | FP8 | BGA1781 | BGA1781 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | DDR5-5600/LPDDR5x-7500 RAM, PCIe 4, USB 4, Ryzen AI (16 TOPS), MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, AVX-512, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME | LPDDR4x-4266/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, vPro Essen., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, SHA | LPDDR4x-4266/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL B., GNA, vPro Ent., RPE, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, TME | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | AMD Radeon 780M ( - 2800 MHz) | Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs ( - 850 MHz) | Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs ( - 950 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | x86 | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | www.amd.com | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i5-1230U → 0% n=0
Average Benchmarks Intel Core i7-1260U → 0% n=0
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
