Intel Core i7-1068G7 vs AMD Ryzen 5 4680U

Intel Core i7-1068G7

The Intel Core i7-1068G7 is a quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Ice-Lake-U generation that was announced in Mai 2019 (Computex). It integrates four Sunnycove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading) clocked at 2.3 (base) - 4.1 (single core Turbo) GHz. All four cores can run at up to 3.6 GHz using Turbo Boost. According to Intel the Sunnycove cores achieve 18% more IPCs (Instructions per Clock) and therefore the CPU performance should be similar to the higher clocked Whiskey-Lake and Coffee-Lake predecessors (e.g. Core i7-8559U, 2.7 - 4.5 GHz). The Core i7-1068G7 is the fastest and only 28 Watt Ice Lake-U chip at the time of announcement in 2019.

The biggest improvement for Ice-Lake is the integrated Gen 11 graphics card called Iris Plus Graphics. The Core i7-1065G7 integrates the biggest G7 variant with 64 CUs clocked at 300 - 1100 MHz. The Iris Plus G7 should be twice as fast as the predecessors and best the AMD Vega 10 GPU in current Ryzen APUs.

Other improvements for Ice Lake are the AI hardware acceleration and the partial integration of Thunderbolt and Wifi 6 in the chip. The integrated DDR4 memory controller supports modules with up to 3200 MHz (and LPDDDR4 3733).

The Core i7-1068G7 is produced in the new  10nm process at Intel that should offer a comparable performance to the 7nm process at TSMC. The TDP is specified at 28 Watts and therefore the CPU is best used in small multimedia laptops from 13-inch upwards (e.g. like a MacBook Pro 13).

AMD Ryzen 5 4680U

The AMD Ryzen 5 4680U is a semi-custom APU of the Renoir family designed for Microsoft devices. The 4680U integrates six CPU cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture clocked at 2.2 GHz (base) to 4 GHz (Boost) with SMT support for a total 12 threads. The two advantages a 4680U has over the older Ryzen 5 4600U are its higher base clock speed and a faster iGPU.

Architecture

The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and in part thanks to this fact, AMD advertises a 2x performance per watt improvement over the 12 nm Ryzen 3000 mobile processors. The built-in dual-channel memory controller supports LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 8 MB of L3 cache can be found on the chip.

Just like the other mobile Ryzen 4000 CPUs, a 4680U supports PCI-Express 3.0. Please go to our Renoir processor hub page for additional information on the product family.

Performance

Multi-thread performance is most comparable to AMD Ryzen 7 4700U and Intel Core i5-10500H, the latter being a much more power-hungry CPU. This makes the Ryzen a more than decent CPU for most tasks, more demanding ones included.

Graphics

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a DX 12 compatible Radeon RX Vega 7 graphics adapter with 7 CUs (448 unified shaders) at up to 1,500 MHz. The Vega iGPU will have no trouble HW-decoding AVC, HEVC and VP9 videos, but the newer AV1 codec will only be decoded via software. In terms of gaming, we are looking at an MX150-level performance. Pretty much all games released in 2020 can be played on low to medium settings in 720p on this graphics adapter.

Power Consumption

This Ryzen 5 has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the long-term power limit), a value that laptop manufacturers - Microsoft, in this case - are free to set to anything between 10 W and 25 W with clock speeds and performance changing accordingly. Indeed, we saw the CPU consume roughly 23 watts when under our usual stress test.

The 7 nm TSMC process this Ryzen is built with makes for very decent, as of mid-2022, energy efficiency.