AMD A9-9420e vs Intel Celeron 3965Y vs AMD A6-9220e

AMD A9-9420e

The AMD A9-9420e is an entry-level chip from the Stoney-Ridge APU series for notebooks (7th APU generation). It was first found in the Dell Inspiron 3000 with passive cooling and 4 GB DDR4 RAM. The performance in that device was way below the normal A9-9420 as the clock speed only reached up to 2,5 GHz. It also includes a Radeon R5 GPU with 192 shaders as well as a single-channel DDR4-2133 memory controller, H.265 video engine and chipset with all I/O ports.

Architecture

Stoney Ridge is the successor of the Carrizo architecture and the design is almost identical. Thanks to optimized manufacturing processes and more aggressive Boost behavior, however, the clocks are a bit higher at the same power consumption. The memory controller now also supports DDR4-RAM, in this case up to 2133 MHz. Stoney Ridge is the designation for the smaller dual-core and single-core chip, while Bristol Ridge is the bigger quad-core chip with dual-channel memory controller. More technical details are available in the following articles:

• AMD's Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge Architecture
• AMD: Bristol Ridge APUs announced

Power Consumption

AMD specifies the TDP of the A9-9420 between 10-25 Watts, but the passively cooled A9-9420e should be positioned lower than 9 Watt.

Intel Celeron 3965Y

The Intel Celeron 3965Y is a low power entry level processor for small laptops or tablets and based on the Kaby Lake architecture. It was announced in Q2 2017 and offers two processor cores clocked at 1.5 GHz (no Turbo Boost). Compared to the Pentium 4410Y, the Celeron 3965Y offers no HyperThreading and therefore can execute only up to two threads simultaneously. The chips also includes the Intel HD Graphics 615 GPU, a dual-channel memory controller (DDR3L/LPDDR3) as well as VP9 and H.265 video de- and encoder. It is still produced in a 14 nm process with FinFET transistors. Currently (2017) it is the slowest Kaby-Lake based processor.

Architecture

Intel basically used the familiar micro architecture from the Skylake generation, so the per-MHz performance is identical. Only the Speed-Shift technology for faster dynamic adjustments of the voltages and clocks was improved, and the matured 14 nm process now also enables much higher frequencies and better efficiency than before. 

Performance

Due to the missing HyperThreading, the Celeron 3965Y is slightly slower than the similar clocked Pentium 4410Y in some multi threaded benchmarks. The single thread performance is due to the missing Turbo Boost significantly worse than the more expensive Core m3-7Y30. This should be noticeable in daily tasks. 

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 615 GPU has 24 Execution Units (EUs) like the old HD Graphics 515 and runs with clocks between 300 and 850 MHz in combination with this processor. The performance heavily depends on the TDP limit as well as the memory configuration; with fast LPDDR3-1866 RAM in dual-channel mode, the GPU should sometimes be able to compete with the HD Graphics 520, but can also be much slower in other scenarios. Modern games from 2016 will, if at all, only run smoothly in the lowest settings.

Contrary to Skylake, Kaby Lake now also supports hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC Main10 with a 10-bit color depth as well as Google's VP9 codec.

Power Consumption

The chip is manufactured in an improved 14 nm process with FinFET transistors, so the power efficiency was once again improved significantly. The TDP is rated at 6 Watt and can be reduced to 4,5 Watt (cTDP down).

AMD A6-9220e

The AMD A6-9220e is an entry-level chip from the Stoney-Ridge APU series for notebooks (7th APU generation), which was announced mid 2017. The 9220e is an entry-level Stoney Ridge processor (dual-core version of Bristol Ridge) and integrates two CPU cores (one Excavator module with 2 integer and on FP unit) clocked between 1.6 - 2.4 GHz. It also includes a Radeon R4 GPU, probably with 192 shaders at 600 MHz, as well as a single-channel DDR4-2133 memory controller, H.265 video engine and chipset with all I/O ports. Compared to the similar named A6-9220 the 9220e is significantly slower clocked (2.5 - 2.9 GHz) including the GPU (600 versus 655 MHz) and can be passively cooled thanks to the TDP of 6W.

Architecture

Stoney Ridge is the successor of the Carrizo architecture and the design is almost identical. Thanks to optimized manufacturing processes and more aggressive Boost behavior, however, the clocks are a bit higher at the same power consumption. The memory controller now also supports DDR4-RAM, in this case up to 2133 MHz. Stoney Ridge is the designation for the smaller dual-core and single-core chip, while Bristol Ridge is the bigger quad-core chip with dual-channel memory controller. More technical details are available in the following articles:

• AMD's Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge Architecture
• AMD: Bristol Ridge APUs announced

Performance

Because of the significantly lower clock speed, the A6-9220e is noticeably slower than the A6-9220. In the Cinebench R15 Multi benchmark the 9220 reaches 38% higher scores, in the single thread test its more than twice as fast (219% versus the 9220 in the HP 255 G6). Compared to Intel CPUs, the A6-9220e is on par with the old Celeron N2820 in Cinebench (single and multi core). Therefore, the CPU is placed in the lowest segment (performance wise) and only suited for light tasks and light multitasking.

Graphics Card

The integrated Radeon R4 (Stoney Ridge) GPU is probably similar to the R5 with 192 active shader units (3 compute cores), but a reduced clock of just 655 instead of 800 MHz. More details about the GPU are available in the linked articles above. 

Power Consumption

AMD specifies the TDP of the A6-9220e with 6 Watts and therefore significantly below the 15 W of the A6-9220. This means the APU can be passively cooled and is a good choice for thin and light notebooks.