AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 8945HS vs Intel Core i5-8300H vs Intel Xeon E-2276M

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.

Intel Core i5-8300H

The Intel Core i5-8300H is a fast processor for laptops with four cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture and was announced early 2018. The processor clocks at between 2.3 and 4 GHz (3.9 with 4 cores) and can execute up to eight threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading. According to Intel, the CPU is manufactured in an improved 14nm (14nm++) process.

The Coffee Lake architecture is similar to Kaby Lake and differs only in the amount of cores (now six cores for the high end versions) and the improved 14nm process (14nm++ according to Intel).

Performance

The Intel Core i5-8300H should perform similar as the older Core i7-7820HQ (2.9 - 4 GHz). The faster Coffee Lake CPUs, like the Core i7-8750H offers two additional cores and is therefore up to 50% faster in multithreaded benchmarks. Still, the performance of the i5-8300H should be sufficient for even demanding applications and games.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer a slightly higher performance as its clock rate has been increased by 50 MHz (rumored). The architecture is identical to that of the Intel HD Graphics 630. We do expect a performance improvement, but as a low-end solution it will probably only display current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.

Power Consumption

Intel specifies the TDP with 45 watts and therefore the i5 is only suited for big laptops with good cooling solutions. Using cTDP-down, the CPU can also be configured to 35 Watt resulting in a reduced performance.

Intel Xeon E-2276M

The Intel Xeon E-2276M is a high-end processor for professional laptops with six cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture. The processor clocks at between 2.8 - 4.7 GHz and can execute up to twelve threads simultaneously thanks to Hyper-Threading / SMT. According to Intel, the CPU is manufactured in an improved 14nm (14nm++) process. Compared to the similar consumer Core i7-9850H, the mobile Xeon offers support for ECC main memory and clocks 100-200 MHz higher.

The Coffee Lake architecture is similar to Kaby Lake and differs only in the amount of cores (now six cores for the high end versions) and the improved 14nm process (14nm++ according to Intel).

Performance

The Xeon E-2276M is a high end processor in 2019 and therefore well suited for all tasks. Thanks to the high Turbo Boost, the single core performance is also very good. Long term performance however is very depending on good cooling and proper TDP settings and differs therefore for each laptop.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics P630 iGPU is the same as the old Intel HD Graphics P630 and the only difference to the UHD Graphics 630 in the consumer models are the professional drivers.

Power Consumption

Intel specifies the TDP with 45 watts and therefore the Xeon is only suited for big laptops with good cooling solutions.