Intel Core i7-8850H vs AMD Ryzen 9 H 270 vs AMD Ryzen 5 8645HS

Intel Core i7-8850H

The Intel Core i7-8850H is a high-end processor for laptops with six cores based on the Coffee Lake architecture and will be announced early 2018. The processor clocks at between 2.6 and 4.3 GHz (4.1 with 4 cores, 4 GHz with 6 cores) and can execute up to twelve 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

Due to the two additional cores, performance has increased by almost 50% compared to a similar clocked Kaby Lake processor like the Core i7-7920HQ (3.1 - 4.1 GHz). Single-core performance has not improved since its Kaby Lake predecessor. As a high-end model, the i7-8850H is suitable for the most 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 i7 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 9 H 270

The Ryzen 9 H 270 is a rebadged Ryzen 9 270 (or Ryzen 9 8945HS) for China, making it a fast mobile laptop processor. This is an APU of the Hawk Point family that has eight Zen 4 cores running at 4.0 GHz to 5.2 GHz. This APU was introduced at CES 2025 and all of its cores are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads.

Architecture and Features

Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips were. The 16 TOPS NPU present here isn't powerful enough for systems built around the 9 270 to be Copilot+ certified.

Elsewhere, the chip has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM while also being compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt. It comes with 20 PCIe 4 lanes, giving fast NVMe SSD up to 7.8 GB/s of throughput.

Please note that this processor is not overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered to the motherboard for good instead (FP8 socket interface).

Performance

Its CPU performance is slated to be identical to the old Ryzen 9 8945HS and R9 7940HS.

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) purring away at up to 2,800 MHz. The Radeon will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p and it will also HW-decode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs (such as AV1, HEVC and AVC) without breaking a sweat. As for gaming, most 2024 games run fine at 1080p with settings set to Low on this graphics adapter.

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 R9 H 270 is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for a reasonably good, as of early 2025, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 8645HS

The Ryzen 5 8645HS is an upper mid-range processor (APU) of the Hawk Point family. This isn't an entirely new chip; instead, the 8645HS is a rebadged Ryzen 5 7640HS with higher clock speeds on the Ryzen AI NPU. The 8645HS was brought to life in Q4 2023 and it has 6 SMT-enabled Zen 4 cores (12 threads) running at 4.3 GHz to 5.0 GHz. The Radeon 760M iGPU is responsible for carrying out 3D calculations and similar duties.

Architecture & Features

Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips are. That's not to say there is no difference between the three. With Hawk Point, AMD is betting big on generative AI; these chips are promised to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs making apps like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop even more powerful.

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger caches/registers/buffers across the board, is slated to bring a double-digit IPC improvement over the former.

Elsewhere, the 8645HS has 16 MB of L3 cache and a super-fast DDR5-5600 / LPDDR5x-7500 RAM controller. USB 4 (and thus Thunderbolt) is supported natively and so is PCIe 4. In fact, 20 PCIe 4 lanes are on offer; data transfer speeds of up to 7.8 GB/s will be possible provided a sufficiently fast NVMe SSD is used.

Systems powered by this Ryzen 5 series chip are expected to run 64-bit Windows 11, 64-bit Windows 10, or Linux. Please note that the APU is not overclockable and neither will you be able to replace it with a faster one as it gets soldered to the motherboard permanently (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

Since the 8645HX is an 7640HS in disguise, it is safe to expect the APU to be about as fast as the Ryzen 9 5900HX, Ryzen 7 6800H, Ryzen 7 7736U and also the Core i5-12500H, 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 760M has 8 CUs (512 shaders) running at up to 2,600 MHz. While this is not the best graphics adapter for gaming as it's only just fast enough for low quality settings and resolutions such as 1600 x 900, it will let you connect up to four SUHD 4320p monitors and it also HW-encodes and HW-decodes the most widely used video codecs such as AV1, HEVC and AVC without breaking a sweat.

Power consumption

The 8645HS has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 35 W to 54 W, giving laptop makers a choice between improving battery life and giving the system they are working on more oomph. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by the chip.

This Ryzen 5 series APU is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.