AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H vs Intel Core i7-10510U

AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H

The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H is a processor for big (gaming) laptops based of the Rembrandt generation. The R5 6650H 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 Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H is the professional version of the consumer R5 6600H with additional management features and the Microsoft Pluton Security processor.

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, DDR5-4800 or LPDDR5-6400, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth LE 5.2, DisplayPort 2, and AV1 decode.

Performance

While we have not tested a single system powered by the Ryzen 5 PRO 6650H as of August 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be about as fast as the 6600HS.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how comfortable the cooling solution of your system is.

In the 6000 series, AMD finally switched to the current RDNA 2 graphics architecture for the iGPU. The 6650H only offers the slower Radeon 660M with 6 of the 12 CUs enabled and 1.9 GHz max. clock rate.

The TDP of the APU is specified at 45 Watts (default). The power efficiency should be very good, thanks to the improved 6 nm process and additional power saving features in the 6000 series.

Intel Core i7-10510U

The Intel Core i7-10510U is a power efficient quad-core SoC for notebooks based on the Comet Lake (CML-U) generation and was announced in August 2019. Compared to the similar Whiskey Lake processors (e.g.& Core i7-8665U), the only difference is support for higher memory speeds (DDR4-2666, LPDDR4-2933) and two additional cores in the top model (not in this i7-10510U). The processor cores are clocked between 1.8 and 4.9 GHz (all 4 cores 4.3 GHz max). Thanks to HyperThreading 8 threads can be used. More information on Comet Lake and all the models and articles on it can be found here.

The integrated graphics adapter however is still the same as in the previous generations. It should be still called Intel HD Graphics 620 and clock from 300 - 1150 MHz in the i7. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a VP9 and H.265 de- and encoder and an integrated dual channel DDR4-2666 / LPDDR4-2933 memory controller.

Performance

The average 10510U in our database proves to be an OK mid-range option, its multi-thread benchmark scores hovering near those of the Ryzen 7 2700U and the Core i5-8259U. While not as impressive as the hexa-core Core i7-10710U, the 10510U will make most customers happy, making for short load times and generally pain-free experience.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 45 W, the Modern 15 A10RB is among the fastest laptops powered by the 10510U that we know of. It can be more than twice as fast in CPU-bound workloads as the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Power consumption

This Core i7 series chip has a default TDP (also known as the long-term power limit) of 15 W, a value that laptop makers are free to change to anything between 10 W and 25 W resulting in corresponding performance and clock speed changes. By going for the lowest value, it is possible to build passively cooled tablets, laptops, mini-PCs around the i7. Please note that Comet Lake-U chips can briefly consume up to 90 W when under extreme loads.

Last but not the least, the i7-10510U is built with one of the old 14 nm Intel processes for lower-than-average, as of late 2022, energy efficiency.