AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 8945HS vs AMD Ryzen 7 H 260 vs AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS

AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 8945HS

The Ryzen 9 PRO 8945HS is a powerful Hawk Point family processor (APU) released in April 2024. The R9 PRO 8945HS is identical to the "normal" R9 8945HS in virtually all respects; both come with 8 Zen 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz to 5.2 GHz (16 processing threads), a 16-TOPS Ryzen AI NPU (higher clock speeds) and the top-of-the-line Radeon 780M graphics adapter. Other key features include PCIe 4 and USB 4 support, LPDDR5x-7500 RAM support and 16 MB of L3 cache. Unlike the R9 8945HS however this PRO series chip has ECC memory support and the Secure Processor feature which in a nutshell is an ARM co-processor built into the main chip.

Architecture and Features

Hawk Point APUs are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, just like Dragon Range, Phoenix and Raphael processors are. With this product family, AMD is betting big on generative AI; these chips are said to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs making apps like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop more powerful than ever before.

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger registers/buffers/caches (reportedly at the cost of some of them becoming slightly slower), is supposed to bring an IPC improvement of around 13%.

Elsewhere, the R9 PRO 8945HS has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast RAM (up to LPDDR5x-7500 or DDR5-5600 with ECC support optionally present depending on the socket). The processor is compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt; PCIe support is limited to the 4.0 spec for a throughput of 1.97 GB/s per lane. 20 lanes are available.

OS support is limited to 64-bit editions of Windows 11 and Windows 10 and of course to Linux. Note that the chip isn't overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable as it gets soldered down for good (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

The 8945HS is an R9 7940HS in disguise, so it's realistic to expect the chip to be just slightly faster than the Core i9-12900HK and also the Ryzen 7 7840HS, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned.

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) running at up to 2,800 MHz. This is a very fast iGPU, as of late 2023. It will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p, and it is also capable of HW-encoding and HW-decoding the most widely used video codecs including AVC, HEVC and AV1. More importantly, it is fast enough for proper 1080p gaming as long as one is fine with low to medium detail settings.

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 8945HS is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 7 H 260

AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS

The Ryzen 7 8745HS is a China-only Hawk Point family chip that never received an official launch. Targeted at gaming and productivity laptops but widely used in mini-PCs, too, the 8745HS features 8 cores (16 threads thanks to SMT support) running at up to 4.9 GHz, along with the still fairly capable Radeon 780M iGPU. There is no NPU here.

As an APU meant for use within China, this Ryzen 7 should be fully compliant with the Chinese government-approved cryptography standards.

The only difference between the 8745HS and the 8745H is the slightly lower default wattage of the latter, potentially leading to slightly lower clock speeds.

Performance

We fully expect this Zen 4 architecture processor to be about as fast as the Ryzen 7 7745HX (8 Zen 4 cores, 3.6 GHz to 5.1 GHz) meaning its multi-thread performance is a little better than the Core Ultra 9 185H but a few percentage points behind the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

Architecture and Features

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support along with other improvements, like larger caches/registers/buffers across the board. Elsewhere, the 8745HS has 16 MB of L3 cache and a fast RAM controller (up to LPDDR5x-7500 and up to DDR5-5600). There are 20 PCI-Express 4 lanes for connecting devices such as NVMe SSDs (1.97 GB/s per lane) and graphics cards; USB 4 / Thunderbolt support is onboard, too. Please note that the APU isn't overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered on to the motherboard for good (FP7r2 or FP8 socket interfaces).

Graphics

The Radeon 780M (12 CUs / 768 shaders, up to 2,600 MHz) can drive 4 monitors simultaneously with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p. It will also have little issue hardware-encoding and hardware-decoding the most widely used video codecs (AV1, AVC, HEVC). As far as gaming is concerned, many titles are still playable at 1080p as of early 2025 albeit with most settings dialed down do Lowest or Low.

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving system makers a choice between improving battery life and making the system they're designing faster. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for a laptop or a mini-PC built around this APU.