There are some important differences between AMD’s new 8 core Ryzen 7 5800H
and Intel’s 8 core i7-10875H laptop processors that you
need to know about, I’ll show you all the differences in this comparison.
These are the differences in specs between these two processors. Both are 8 core 16 thread
parts with 16mb of cache. The Ryzen chip has a higher base clock, but much lower boost clock.
Both are listed with a 45 watt TDP, but I’ll explain shortly why that doesn’t mean much,
otherwise there are some differences to memory speeds.
For this comparison I’m using the XMG Neo 15, the same Tongfang chassis as the Eluktronics
Mech-15 G3. I’ve got the 2020 model with the i7 and the new 2021 version with the 5800H.
Both laptops were tested with 32gb of memory in dual channel, however Ryzen runs the memory kit
at DDR4-3200 CL22, while Intel runs the same memory at DDR4-2933 CL21. Now there are some
Intel 10875H laptops that do have XMP support for DDR4-3200, but many do not including this one,
so I think it’s still a fair comparison as this is an actual platform difference,
and many of the tests aren’t memory bound anyway.
Now despite both laptops being the same model, there are some generational differences.
The older Intel model uses liquid metal while the newer Ryzen one does not, and the new Ryzen model
is a little thicker than last gen. The heat pipe layout is also a bit different inside,
so I guess not perfectly directly apples to apples comparable, but this is the best I can do.
Both of these machines should offer pretty much best case performance from these CPUs,
as they allow the processor to run with higher power limits,
but I have also tested with both capped to a 45W TDP
Unfortunately I don’t think this is going to be all that useful
though. Intel and AMD calculate TDP differently.
Here’s the TDP reported with hardware info with the blender opendata benchmark running,
which is a heavy multicore workload. I’ve got the power limited results down the bottom,
and the no limit results above. As expected, software shows both running at 45 watts with
my cap in place, however with no limit the Intel chip is significantly higher.
Here’s what actual power draw from the wall looks like. This is for the entire laptop, but both do
have the same screens and other components, so the majority of the difference is down to the
active CPU workload. With both capped to a 45 watt TDP, the 5800H is using 15% more wattage,
however the i7’s power draw increases much higher when it’s not restricted,
requiring 29% more power now than the 5800H in this blender test.
Now that wouldn’t be an issue if the performance was actually there to back it up,
but it’s not. These are the results from the blender benchmark that I
used to measure the power draw. With both set to a 45 watt TDP,
the Ryzen 7 5800H is completing the task 34% faster, despite using 15% more power.
With both processors no longer power limited, the 5800H’s lead lowers to it being 20%
faster, but remember that with no power limit in place the i7 is drawing 29%
more power from the wall, just to perform worse.
As we saw earlier, the cooling is a bit different between these two laptops,
and the Intel laptop does have liquid metal. This would definitely be helping here, as
XMG told me this offers a 9 degree celsius improvement, so this is probably why the
i7 is running cooler in this test despite using more power with no limits. The reason
XMG aren’t offering liquid metal here is it’s apparently more risky to apply due to the layout.
These are the clock speeds over all 8 cores during the same test.
The i7 is able to clock slightly higher with no TDP limit, but don’t forget it’s
using more power and actually completing the task slower, as there are of course
plenty of other differences between them that affect performance than just this.
So basically I don’t really think the “45W TDP” thing is a fair comparison between
Intel and AMD, but I do think it will be useful for comparing against laptops that do
actually have a 45W power limit. Without power limits, the Ryzen 7 5800H is simply more power
efficient compared to the i7-10875H in this particular multicore test. Realistically,
to do a proper comparison I’d have to modify power limits while measuring the power of both
from the wall and then pick some random TDP such that both laptops are drawing the same amount of
power from the wall. While that may be cool for science, I don’t think it’s really that practical,
as I don’t think anyones going to be running these at that specific TDP value, so it just
wouldn’t represent how anyone’s actually going to use these. Alright now with all that groundwork
laid, let’s have a look at some other tests followed by gaming on the iGPU afterwards.
Let’s start with Cinebench R23 as this includes both single and multicore
tests. The 5800H was scoring 15% higher in single core with both power limits capped,
however the multicore score was 44% higher. With no power limits in place,
the Intel system closes the gap a little in the multicore test, but it’s still no match for Ryzen.
I’ve also tested the older Cinebench R20 as a lot of people still use it,
so you can use these numbers for comparing my results with. The margins were similar,
and like R23, for some reason single core scores were slightly better on
Ryzen with the power limit in place, though it’s margin of error stuff.
That wasn’t the case in geekbench,
where single core scores were basically the same on Ryzen whether or not it was power limited.
Like the other tests, it’s a win for Ryzen in both multi and single threaded tests.
V-Ray uses the processor to render out a scene. This is a multicore test,
and another win for the 5800H. Now with both at a 45 watt TDP, Ryzen was scoring 38%
higher, though as we saw earlier the 45 watt thing isn’t a fair comparison anyway.
With both processors doing the best they can, Ryzen was now just 6% higher.
The Corona benchmark is another multithreaded rendering workload,
and again similar results, with the 5800H completing the task around 6% faster without
any arbitrary power limits in place, though it was 26% faster with the 45 watt TDP.
Handbrake was used to convert a 4K h.264 video file that I shot to 1080p
h.265. Again the 5800H was completing the task faster regardless of whether or not
we’re power limited. The 5800H was 13% faster with no limits, or 24% faster with the 45 watt limits.
7-Zip was used to test compression and decompression speeds. This is an area
where Ryzen has traditionally beat Intel, and the gap only gets bigger now with the newer Zen
3 processor. Decompression saw the largest difference between the two CPUs out of all
workloads I’ve tested, with the 5800H 29% faster with no power limits, or 58% faster at 45 watts.
Adobe Photoshop was tested with the puget systems benchmark. The scores didn’t change
too much with the higher power limits compared to most of the other workloads,
and worst case the 5800H was still scoring 25% higher than the i7 in this test.
Microsoft Excel followed a similar pattern to the other tests, the 5800H
was completing the task faster though the gap does narrow in when both aren’t power limited.
Power limits didn’t seem to affect the Intel processor when it came to AES
encryption and decryption speed. Again the 5800H had the lead in both cases.
These are the differences when looking at all of the applications just tested with the 45 watt TDP
in place. Regardless of the workload in use, the Ryzen 7 5800H was the winner, by as little as 10%,
to as much as 40 to 50% depending on the specific test. Comparing with the 45 watt
TDP limit isn’t particularly fair as Intel and AMD measure this differently though,
but it is a limit that many laptops do actually have in place.
Here’s how things look if we instead don’t have any power limits in place.
In some of these workloads, thermals actually became the next barrier,
so in theory the i7 machine could have an edge there due to its liquid metal application.
At the end of the day though it doesn’t change the conclusion, because the Ryzen 7 5800H was still
doing better in all workloads tested. Results here could vary a bit depending on the specific
laptop though, but I believe this showcases near best case results for both processors.
Both the Intel and AMD processors have integrated graphics, so let’s see how well they do in games.
I’ve tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 720p with the highest setting preset using the games
built in benchmark, as this test reported that both laptops were 100% GPU bound. The
Nvidia graphics were disabled during this test. The 5800H was reaching an average frame rate
278% higher than the 10875H. 10th gen Intel integrated graphics just isn’t great for gaming,
but with AMD’s Vega you’ve at least got a shot at 720p with lower settings.
Now to be fair it’s probably pretty unlikely that you’ll be using one of these CPUs without
discrete graphics, but I think it’s still important to compare all aspects.
Both of these laptops unfortunately have different discrete Nvidia graphics, which
is why proper gaming benchmarks were not possible here. Hopefully I’ll be able to cover this in a
future video, it just depends on what machines I get sent, I just need two with the same GPU,
and I’m really interested to test it because there are some PCIe lane differences between
Intel and AMD. Intel connects to the GPU with 16 lanes, while AMD uses 8, and I really want to know
what sort of difference, if any, that makes. So yeah stay tuned for that! Now Intel did recently
replace the 10875H with the 10870H, presumably due to availability issues. I’m guessing the 10870H is
just a 10875H that didn’t quite make the bin. Kind of like what we saw with the 10850K and 10900K.
The 10870H is basically just the same thing, just with a 100MHz lower base and boost clock speeds,
so if anything, I would expect the 5800H’s lead to be a little better there.
Speaking of supply issues, XMG has publicly stated that there are shortages on Zen
3 laptop processors, so it might be hard to get a new Ryzen laptop with the 5800H,
and depending on how long you want to wait an Intel option might be the only choice.
Now Intel’s 8 core did launch in Q2 last year, while the 5800H only just came out in 2021,
so it’s going to be really interesting to revisit this comparison once Intel 11th gen
8 core laptops are here, you’re definitely going to want to make sure you’re subscribed for that
upcoming content. For now though, I’ll show you how the 5800H compares against the older
4800H from last generation in this video over here, so I’ll see you over in that one next.