by We Compare the Performance and Specs of AMD Ryzen 7000 Series Laptops vs. Intel 13th Generation Laptop CPUs and APUs
Updated: March 17, 2023 9:38 am
In the fight of Intel 13th Generation Laptop vs Ryzen 7000 Series Laptop CPUs and APUs, who will return victorious? As always, it’s likely that both companies will win in certain areas, but what you as a consumer need to know is how each of the different SKUs compares.
Although quite a few Intel 13th Gen laptops have now been released, we’re still waiting for quite a few models to come out, and AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptops are just getting started, so comparative data is still quite limited, but what’s out there is we will discuss below.
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AMD Ryzen 7000 Series Laptop CPU Model Names Explained
Comparing Intel 13th Gen laptops vs AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptops has been made extra confusing by the red team as they have decided to completely change their naming convention from previous years, changing the number and letters and their precise arrangement for each model now meaning something completely different. Read our AMD Ryzen 7000 Series laptop guide for a more detailed look at how this works, but in summary the order from most to least powerful is as follows: Ryzen 7045 Dragon Range Laptops (gaming & workstation, use Zen 4 architecture), Ryzen 7040 Phoenix Range Laptops (creative and light-medium gaming, use Zen 4 architecture), Ryzen 7035 Rembrandt-R Laptops (ultra-thin, for creatives, use Zen 3+ architecture), Ryzen 7030 Barcelo-R Laptops (ultrasound for general use, use Zen 3 architecture), Ryzen 7020 Mendocino Laptops (general purpose budget laptops, with Zen 2 architecture).
AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX vs Intel Core i9-13980HX
While we haven’t seen any proper independent tests/benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX (Dragon Range) CPU yet, based on PassMark scores released online, it seems to be a worthy contender based on the leaks of the synthetic benchmarks which we have that I’ve seen on the internet, although so far it’s uncertain who will be the winner.
The AMD CPU actually exceeded expectations in PassMark (scored 4,405 single-thread, 61,985 multi-thread), beating not only the Intel Core i9-13980HX laptop CPU (4,398 & 48,954), but also the performance of the desktop Intel i9 -13900KS approaches processor (4,809 & 62,116), at least in multi-thread/core performance, which is an impressive achievement indeed. You can take a look at the PassMark site for the full list.
In Geekbench, the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX scored 2,127 single core & 19,403 multi-core vs the Intel Core i9-13980HX which scored 2,103 & 19,885 – so pretty even results.
AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX vs Intel Core i9-13900HX
Passmark scores for the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX have been released, showing it comes in at 4,007 single-thread & 44,984 multi-thread, trailing the Intel Core i9-13900HX at 4,293 & 46,436, though the AMD laptop CPU is expected to will be priced cheaper than the aforementioned AMD variant and with greater power efficiency. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out.
Ryzen 7000 Series Laptop APUs vs Intel 13th Generation Laptop iGPUs
An APU (accelerated processing unit) is essentially a combined CPU and GPU, meaning that laptops without dedicated (separate) graphics cards can perform somewhat graphically demanding tasks (though not to the level of a dedicated GPU). It is a term and technology mainly used by AMD, while Intel uses “integrated graphics”/iGPUs, which perform the same function but are slightly different technologically (less integrated with the CPU) and are usually less powerful for graphics functions.
Tech wizard/roadie Gamers Nexus made a video in 2022 comparing the best integrated graphics on the market at the time and as you can see in the screenshot below, AMD APUs beat similar SKU Intel Iris Xe / UHD Graphics, although they fell far short of beating a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics card.
There was a lot of singing and dancing about the potential of the new Ryzen 7000 series APUs and their power versus Intel integrated graphics, with claims that they would be somewhat revolutionary for thin and light notebook/ultrabook machines, but recent news has a little chilled water on these claims.
AMD Ryzen 7040 Phoenix APU Performance
The Phoenix series is the most powerful of AMD’s APU line (with the Dragon series focusing more on CPU power, assuming they are paired with a dedicated graphics card).
The first data was spotted by Twitter Tech Leaker/Reporter @TUM_APISAK from UserBenchmark that it returned an average graphics score of 44.3%: roughly on par with a desktop Radeon RX 570 graphics card / Nvidia GTX 1060 Mobile (which scored 46.7%) or a GTX 1650 Ti laptop GPU. If this data can be trusted, it’s quite an impressive result, but this is apparently based on a technical example that may have since been downgraded based on more recent information (read more below).
As you can see in the images below (courtesy of WCCFTECH) it appears that AMD has lowered the GPU clock on the Ryzen 9 7940HS APU by 200MHz, and the same is true for the Ryzen 7 7840HS and Ryzen 5 7640HS APUs. Such a reduction will undoubtedly reduce performance and raises questions as to why this is happening. On top of this @aschilling saw on Twitter that PCIe 5 support for Phoenix also seems to no longer be a reality as they are being downgraded to PCIe 4.
Ultimately, even with both changes, AMD APUs will almost certainly outperform Intel iGPUs, but these downgrades are somewhat annoying given the hype surrounding them.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Intel 13th Generation Laptop vs Ryzen 7000 Series Laptop
Are Intel 13th Gen Laptops Better Than AMD?
The answer to this question depends a lot on the specific laptop and CPU in the range, but it looks like the top of the line AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX beats the Intel Core i9-13980HX in both single-core and multi-core scenarios.
However, this is not necessarily the case with other SKUs and Intel laptops could win.
Will Ryzen 7000 laptops be better than Intel 12th gen laptops?
Almost certainly. Some Ryzen 7000 series processor SKUs compete against Intel 13th Gen laptop CPUs, even beating them in some cases.
Intel 12th generation laptops are no match in comparison.
Intel 13th Gen Laptop vs Ryzen 7000 Series Laptop: Final Word
We hope this Intel 13th gen laptop vs Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPU and APU guide has proved somewhat enlightening. We’ll add to the information here as more independent benchmarking comes out to give you a better overall picture and help you make your choice.
