AMD Ryzen 7 4980U vs Apple M3 vs AMD Ryzen 5 4600U
AMD Ryzen 7 4980U
► remove from comparisonThe AMD Ryzen 7 4980U is a Renoir family processor designed for certain Microsoft Surface systems. 4980U has eight Zen 2 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz (base clock speed) to 4.4 GHz (Boost) with thread-doubling SMT tech enabled for a total of 16 threads. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and partly thanks to that AMD promises a 2x improvement in performance-per-Watt over Ryzen 3000 series mobile CPUs.
Architecture
The Zen 2 microarchitecture has brought a sizeable per-thread performance boost compared to the outgoing Zen+ parts. Renoir product family is also the first to introduce 8-core ULV processors to laptop market, keeping power consumption within reasonable limits. This AMD processor family is very impressive from most perspectives. One of the disatvantages to keep in mind is the lack of PCI-Express 4 support, meaning these blazing-fast NVMe SSDs will be limited to 3.9 GB/s tops.
Ryzen 7 4980U is designed to work with quad-channel LPDDR4 memory at up to 4,267 MHz. 8 MB of Level 3 are present in this chip. The Ryzen 7 gets soldered straight to the motherboard (FP6 socket) and is thus not user-replaceable. Please go to our Renoir hub page for more information on the product family.
Performance
The 4980U is the fastest U-class Ryzen 4000 series chip. As such, its clock speeds are 200 MHz higher (both the base one and Boost one) than what the Ryzen 7 4800U has.
It is thus hardly surprising that the average 4980U in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 7 5800U and also the Core i7-1260P, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned.
Graphics
In addition to its eight CPU cores, the Ryzen 7 also features the Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics adapter with 8 CUs (= 512 shaders) at up to 1,950 MHz. This iGPU is compatible with FreeSync and DirectX 12 and is able to HW-decode AVC, HEVC, VP9-encoded videos (no AV1 support here). Vega 8 is capable of outputting UHD 2160p60 video signal to several monitors and, similar to Intel's Iris Xe (80 EUs), is good enough for a bit of light gaming on the go, provided one is content with sub-1080p resolutions and low/medium quailty presets.
Power consumption
The APU has a default TDP, also known as the long-term power limit, of 15 W; much like it is with other U-class Ryzen 4000 chips, AMD is fine with laptop makers (Microsoft, in this case) changing that value to anything between 10 W and 25 W.
The 7 nm TSMC process this Ryzen 7 is built with makes for above average, as of mid 2022, energy efficiency.
Apple M3
► remove from comparisonThe Apple M3 is a system on a chip (SoC) from Apple for notebooks that was introduced in late 2023. It integrates a new 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores with up to 4.06 GHz and 4 efficiency cores running at up to 2.75 GHz. Apple claims that the CPU is up to 20% faster than in the old Apple M2 (3.5 GHz).
Due to the higher clock speeds and architecture improvements, the processor performance is also significantly better than the M2 in benchmarks (see e.g. Geekbench below) and can keep up with the fastest CPUs in short single-core tests (like the Raptor Lake i9-13950HX).
The M3 also integrates a new graphics adapter with dynamic caching, mesh shading and ray tracing acceleration. According to Apple, it is 20% faster than the GPU in the M2. The chip integrates again 10 GPU cores, but the cheaper variant only offers 8 cores (e.g. in the entry iMac). Furthermore, the GPU only supports 2 displays (an additional 6K60 display to the internal one).
Both GPU and CPU can access the unified memory on the package together. It is still available in 8, 16 and 24 GB variants and offers the same 100 GB/s maximum bandwidth (unlike the Pro models that feature a reduced memory bandwidth).
The integrated 16-core Neural Engine has also been revised and now offers 18 TOPS peak performance (versus 15.8 TOPS in the M2 but 35 TOPS in the new A17 Pro). The video engine now supports AV1 decoding in hardware. H.264, HEVC and ProRes (RAW) can still be decoded and encoded.
Unfortunately, the integrated wireless network module only supports Wi-Fi 6E (no Wi-Fi 7) and due to the support of only a single external monitor, the chip also has to make do with no Thunderbolt 4 (Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 support only for up to 40 Gbit/s).
The chip is manufactured on the current 3nm TSMC process (N3B most likely) and contains 25 billion transistors (+25% vs. Apple M2). The 3nm process should also contribute to the excellent efficiency of the chip. Under load, the M3 CPU consumes approximately 20 Watt.
AMD Ryzen 5 4600U
► remove from comparisonThe AMD Ryzen 5 4600U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Renoir architecture. The 4600U integrates six cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 2.1 (guaranteed base clock) to 4 GHz (Turbo) with SMT / Hyperthreading support (12 threads). The chip is manufactured in the modern 7 nm process at TSMC and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips.
With two less cores, the Ryzen 5 4600U is clearly slower than the Ryzen 7 4700U and 4800U in multi threaded workloads. However, it should still beat the fastest 15 Watt Ice Lake Intel Core i7-1065G7 (4 cores, 3.9 GHz). Thanks to the 4 GHz Boost clock, the single core performance should be similar. Therefore, the Ryzen 5 4600U is a very fast 15 Watt CPU and clearly faster than the old Ryzen 7 3700U.
In addition to the six CPU cores, the APU also integrates a Radeon RX Vega 6 integrated graphics card with 6 CUs and up to 1500 MHz. The dual channel memory controller supports DDR4-3200 and energy efficient LPDDR4-4266 RAM. Furthermore, 8 MB level 3 cache can be found on the chip. See our hub page on the Renoir Processors for more information.
The TDP of the APU is specified at 15 Watt (default) and can be configured from 10 to 25 Watt by the laptop vendor. That means the chip is intended for thin and light laptops (but with fans).
Model | AMD Ryzen 7 4980U | Apple M3 | AMD Ryzen 5 4600U | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series | AMD Renoir (Ryzen 4000 APU) | Apple Apple M3 | AMD Renoir (Ryzen 4000 APU) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Codename | Renoir-U (Zen 2) | Renoir-U (Zen 2) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series: Renoir (Ryzen 4000 APU) Renoir-U (Zen 2) |
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Clock | 2000 - 4400 MHz | 2748 - 4056 MHz | 2100 - 4000 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L1 Cache | 512 KB | 384 KB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L2 Cache | 4 MB | 4 MB | 3 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L3 Cache | 8 MB | 8 MB | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cores / Threads | 8 / 16 | 8 / 8 4 x 4.1 GHz Apple M3 P-Core 4 x 2.7 GHz Apple M3 E-Core | 6 / 12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP | 15 Watt | 15 Watt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology | 7 nm | 3 nm | 7 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
max. Temp. | 105 °C | 105 °C | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Socket | FP6 | FP6 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | LPDDR4-4266 RAM, PCIe 3, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA | ARMv8 Instruction Set | DDR4-3200/LPDDR4-4266 RAM, PCIe 3, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, SMT, CPB, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA, SME | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
iGPU | AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 4000/5000) ( - 1950 MHz) | Apple M3 10-Core GPU | AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 (Ryzen 4000/5000) ( - 1500 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | x86 | ARM | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manufacturer | www.amd.com | www.apple.com | www.amd.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Transistors | 25000 Million |