AMD Ryzen 5 6600H vs Intel Core i7-12800H

AMD Ryzen 5 6600H

The AMD Ryzen 5 6600H is a processor for big (gaming) laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The R5 6600H integrates six of the eight cores based on the Zen 3+ microarchitecture. They are clocked at 3.3 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.5 GHz (Turbo) and support SMT / Hyperthreading (12 threads). The chip is manufactured on the modern 6 nm TSMC process. 

The new Zen 3+ is a refresh of the Zen 3 architecture and should not offer a lot of changes. The chip itself however, offers a lot of new features, like support for USB 4 (40 Gbps), PCI-E Gen 4, DDR5-4800MT/s or LPDDR5-6400MT/s, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE 5.2, DisplayPort 2, and AV1 decode.

In the 6000 series, AMD finally switched to the current RDNA 2 graphics architecture for the iGPU. The 6600H only offers the slower Radeon 660M with 6 of the 12 CUs enabled and 1.9 GHz max. clock speed.

Performance

The average 6600H in our database is in the same league as the R7 5825U, the R7 6800U and also the Core i5-1340P, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a very decent result, as of late 2022.

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 5 series APU has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 45 W. A high-performance cooling solution is a must for a system built around such a chip.

The R5 6600H is built with TSMC's 6 nm process for great, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-12800H

The Intel Core i7-12800H is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 20 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.4 to 4.8 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.8 to3.7 GHz on the efficient cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare to the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 24 MB L3 cache. Compared to the 12900H, the 12800H is lower clocked and also features  the full "Enterprise" set of vPro features (for remote management).

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.4 GHz.

Performance

The average 12800H in our database matches the Ryzen 9 6900HS and the Core i9-11900H in multi-thread performance. Which is fairly impressive, as of mid 2022.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 70 W, the ZBook Studio 16 G9 is among the fastest laptops built around the 12800H that we know of. It can be about 70% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Core i7 series chip has a "minimum assured" power consumption of 35 W, with 45 W being its Base power consumption. The maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption sits at 115 W.

The i7-12800H is built with Intel's fourth-gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.