Intel Core i5-11320H vs AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS

Intel Core i5-11320H

The Intel Core i5-11320H is a mid range SoC for thin and light gaming laptops and mobile workstations. It is based on the Tiger Lake H35 refresh generation and will be announced in Q3 2021. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP setting and can vary from 2.5 (28 W TDP) to 3.2 GHz (35 W). The boost of a single and two cores under load can reach up to 4.5 GHz. All four cores can reach up to 4.3 GHz. The L3 cache is reduced to 8 MB compared to the 12 MB of the higher end i7 models.

Thanks to the improved clock speeds, the performance gap to the faster i7-11370H should be quite small. The i7 still offers higher single and dual core Turbo speeds and more L3 cache.

The SoC also included the improved Xe graphics card with 96 CUs clocked at up to 1350 MHz.

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (four lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 in the chip.

The chip is produced on the improved 10nm process (called 10nm SuperFin) at Intel, which should be comparable to the 7nm process at TSMC (e.g. Ryzen 4000 series).

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.

AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS

The AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS is a processor for big (gaming) laptops based on the Rembrandt generation. The R9 6900HS integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.9 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (16 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm TSMC process. The HS variant offers a 10 W lower TDP and therefore a lower sustained performance than the HX version.

The new Zen 3+ is a refresh of the Zen 3 architecture and should not offer a lot of changes. The chip itself however, offers a lot of new features, like support for USB 4 (40 Gbps), PCI-E Gen 4, DDR5-4800MT/s or LPDDR5-6400MT/s, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE 5.2, DisplayPort 2, and AV1 decode.

Performance

The average 6900HS in our database matches the Intel Core i7-12800H in multi-thread performance while managing to keep up with the more power-hungry 6900HX. "Top of the crop" is precisely the right phrase to describe this Ryzen 9 series chip, as of Q4 2022, and it will have no difficulty ripping through any task imaginable for years to come.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

A big novelty is the integrated GPU Radeon 680M, that is now based on the RDNA2 architecture and offers 12 CUs at up to 2.4 GHz. It should be the fastest iGPU of all at the time of announcement.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 35 Watts and therefore better suited for thin and light laptops. The power efficiency should be very good, thanks to the improved 6 nm process  and additional power saving features in the 6000 series.