Intel Core i7-1165G7 vs AMD Ryzen 5 5625U

Intel Core i7-1165G7

The Intel Core i7-1165G7 is an upper mid-range, quad-core SoC designed for use in ultra-thin laptops. The Tiger Lake-UP3 processor was unveiled in September 2020; its Hyper-Threading-enabled Willow Cove CPU cores run at 2.8 GHz (base clock speed @ 28 W TDP) to 4.7 GHz (single-core Boost frequency). The all-core Boost frequency sits at 4.1 GHz. This i7 was the second-fastest CPU of TGL-UP3 line-up when Intel initially launched the series in 2020.

The i7 is ever-so-slightly inferior to Intel Core i7-1185G7 in that vPro support is nowhere to be found, the clock speeds are lower, and the iGPU's clock speed is a little lower as well.

Architecture

A sizeable performance-per-MHz boost is one of the many benefits of Tiger Lake generation compared to the older Ice Lake and Comet Lake product families. Core i7-1165G7 is compatible with dual-channel DDR4-3200 or quad-channel LPDDR4x-4267 RAM; Intel recommends using no more than 64 GB, for reference. The processor also supports PCI-Express 4.0 (4 lanes) and is capable of HW-accelerating certain AI workloads. Thunderbolt 4, USB 4 and Wi-Fi 6 support is partially baked into the chip. Four PCI-Express 4.0 lanes allow for read/write rates of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

The i7 is built with the third-gen 10 nm Intel process marketed as SuperFin that is supposedly comparable to TSMC's 7 nm process, the one Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 series processors are manufactured on. Both the CPU cores and the iGPU have access to 12 MB of L3 cache. The SoC is supposed to be soldered straight on to the motherboard (BGA1449 socket interface); it is thus anything but user-replaceable.

Performance

The average i7-1165G7 in our database is just as fast as Intel's Core i5-10200H and Core i7-10810U are, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. The chip is brave enough to come dangerously close to the noticeably costlier i7-1195G7 while unfortunately not quite reaching the high bar set by the Ryzen 3 5300U. That being said, it's a very decent CPU that will have no trouble chewing through light video editing and 3D rendering jobs on the go with a bit of gaming possible as well, as of early 2022.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 40 W, the Schenker Vision 15 is among the fastest laptops built around the 1165G7 that we know of. It can be more than 60% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

The Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 EUs) is based on Intel's Generation 12 architecture. It is a lot faster than the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake) and UHD Graphics 620 (Comet Lake) solutions. The Xe has 96 Execution Units running at 400 MHz to 1,300 MHz, in the case of this Core i7.

This graphics adapter can drive up to 4 monitors in resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p@60 simultaneously, and the built-in video decoder is AV1-friendly. It will happily decode most other video codecs including HEVC, AVC, VP9, MPEG-2 and so on, too.

The Xe will let you play most games at 1080p / Low. It's nearly as fast as NVIDIA's GeForce MX350, surpassing anything we have seen from AMD's integrated graphics thus far. It is paramount that fast RAM is used as the Xe has no VRAM of its own. The other prerequisites for decent 3D performance are decently high Power Limits and a competent cooling solution.

Power consumption

The i7-1165G7 has a default TDP of 12 W to 28 W, the expectation being that laptop makers will go for a higher value to get higher clock speeds and thus better performance. Either way, these values are too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The i7 is built with Intel's third-generation 10 nm process marketed as SuperFin for decent, as of mid 2022, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 5625U

The AMD Ryzen 5 5625U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Cezanne generation. It is part of the "Barcelo" refresh in early 2022 and offers 100 MHz higher boost clock for the CPU cores compared to the old Ryzen 5 5600U. The R5 5625U integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3 microarchitecture and is the third fastest U-5000-series processor at launch. The cores are clocked at 2.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.3 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT for a total of 12 threads. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process.

In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 7 integrated graphics card with 7 CUs at up to 1800 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.

Performance

The average 5625U in our database is in the same league as the Core i5-1255U, Core i5-1335U, Core i5-1345U and also the Ryzen 5 7530U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a decent result, as of Q3 2023.

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

Power consumption

This Ryzen has a default TDP of 15 W (also known as the Power Limit 1). Which is a little too high to allow for passively cooled designs.

The APU is built with TSMC's 7 nm process for higher-than-average, as of mid-2022, energy efficiency.