Intel Core i5-8400H vs AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U

Intel Core i5-8400H

The Intel Core i5-8400H is a high-end processor for laptops with four cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture and will be announced early 2018. The processor clocks at between 2.5 and 4.2 GHz (4.1 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 i5-8400H should perform similar as the older Core i7-7920HQ (3.1 - 4.1 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 i5-8400H 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.

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne / Barcelo generation. The R7 5875U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture and is the fastest U-series PRO processor at launch. They are clocked at 2 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT for a total of 16 processing threads. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process.

The PRO CPUs offer additional management and security features. The 5875U is the refresh of the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U and offers 100 MHz higher clocked CPU cores.

The Zen 3 microarchitecture offers a significantly higher IPC (instructions per clock) compared to Zen 2. For desktop processors AMD claims 19 percent on average and in applications reviews showed around 12% gains at the same clock speed.

With the increased clock speed and IPC improvements thanks to Zen 3, the Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U should be clearly faster than the lower clocked Ryzen 7 4800U.

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

The TDP of the APU is specified at 15 Watt (default) and can be configured from 10 to 25 Watt by the laptop vendor (most chips are configured higher than 15 Watt). That means the chip is intended for thin and light laptops (but with fans).