Intel 13th gen laptop vs Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPUs

We compare the performance and specs of AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptop vs Intel 13th gen laptop CPUs and APUs

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In the battle of Intel 13th gen laptop vs Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPUs and APUs, who emerges victorious? As ever, both companies take wins in certain areas on different SKUs, but overall it seems that AMD have won this year as far as laptop processors go – having the most powerful options in their roster, the lower amount of thermal output (meaning less thermal throttling), and also (though by less of a margin than in previous years) being more energy efficient. That being said, machines with Intel 13th gen processors are still well worth buying.

*UPDATE* much of the below early benchmarking information discussed below has been superseded by proper third party testing now, so you’d be better checking our our dedicated Intel 13th gen laptop and AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptop guides for the latest info. Do also have a look at our Black Friday laptop deals and Black Friday gaming laptop deals guides for some fantastic offers this November,

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AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPU model names explained

Comparing Intel 13th gen laptops vs AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptops has been made extra confusing by the red team, as they’ve decided to completely change their naming convention from previous years, with the number and letters and their precise arrangement for each model now meaning something totally different. Have a read of our AMD Ryzen 7000 series laptop guide for a more detailed breakdown of how this works, but in summary, the order of most to least powerful is as follows: Ryzen 7045 Dragon Range laptops (gaming & workstation, use Zen 4 architecture), Ryzen 7040 Phoenix Range laptops (creatives and light-medium gaming, use Zen 4 architecture), Ryzen 7035 Rembrandt-R laptops (ultrathin, for creatives, use Zen 3+ architecture), Ryzen 7030 Barcelo-R laptops (general-use ultrathin, use Zen 3 architecture), Ryzen 7020 Mendocino laptops (budget general-use laptops, using Zen 2 architecture).

AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX vs Intel Core i9-13980HX

Although we’ve yet to see proper independent tests/benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX (Dragon Range) CPU, based on PassMark scores that have released online, it appears to be a worthy contender based on the leaks of the synthetic benchmarks we’ve seen released on the internet, though it’s uncertain as of yet which will end up the victor.

The AMD CPU actually exceeded expectations in PassMark (scoring 4,405 single-thread, 61,985 multi-thread), beating not only the Intel Core i9-13980HX laptop CPU (4,398 & 48,954), but also approaching the performance of the desktop Intel i9-13900KS processor (4,809 & 62,116), in multi-thread/core performance at least, which is an impressive feat indeed. You can take a look on the PassMark site for the full list.

In Geekbench the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX scored 2,127 single core & 19,403 multi-core vs the Intel Core i9-13980HX which scored 2,103 & 19,885 – so fairly even results.

AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX vs Intel Core i9-13900HX

Passmark scores for the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX have been released which show it coming in at 4,007 single-thread and 44,984 multi-thread, which falls short of the Intel Core i9-13900HX at 4,293 & 46,436, though it’s expected that the AMD laptop CPU will be priced cheaper than the aforementioned AMD variant and with greater energy efficiency. We’ll have to wait to see how this plays out.

Ryzen 7000 series laptop APUs vs Intel 13th gen laptop iGPUs

An APU (Accelerated Processing unit) is essentially a combined CPU and GPU, meaning that laptops without dedicated (separate) graphics cards can perform somewhat graphically demanding tasks (though not to the level of a dedicated GPU). It’s a term and technology primarily used by AMD, whereas Intel use ‘integrated graphics’/iGPUs, which form the same function but are technologically slightly different (being less integrated with the CPU) and tend to be less powerful for graphical functions.

Tech wizard/roadie Gamers Nexus did a video in 2022 comparing the best integrated graphics on the market at the time and as you can see from the screengrab below, AMD APUs battered comparable SKU Intel Iris Xe / UHD Graphics, though fell well short of beating a dedicated Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti graphics card.

Much song and dance was made about the potential for the new Ryzen 7000 series APUs and their power vs Intel integrated graphics, with claims that they would be somewhat revolutionary for thin and light notebook/ultrabook machines, however recent news has thrown a bit of cold water on these claims.

AMD Ryzen 7040 Phoenix APU performance

The Phoenix series are the most powerful of AMD’s APU line (with the Dragon range being more focused on CPU power on the assumption they’ll be paired with a dedicated graphics card).

Initial data was spotted by twitter tech leaker/reporter @TUM_APISAK from UserBenchmark that gave it a 44.3% average graphics score: more or less comparable to a desktop Radeon RX 570 graphics card / Nvidia GTX 1060 Mobile (which scored 46.7%) or a GTX 1650 Ti laptop GPU. If this data can be trusted, this is a fairly impressive result, however this is apparently based on an engineering sample that may have since been downgraded based on more recent info (continue reading below).

As you can see in the below images (courtesy of WCCFTECH) it seems like AMD has lowered the GPU clock on the Ryzen 9 7940HS APU by 200MHz, and the same is also true for the Ryzen 7 7840HS and Ryzen 5 7640HS APUs. Such a lowering is bound to reduce performance and begs questions as to why this is happening. On top of this @aschilling on Twitter spotted that PCIe 5 support for Phoenix looks to no longer be a reality either, with them being downgraded to PCIe 4.

Ultimately, even with both of these changes, AMD APUs will almost certainly outperform Intel iGPUs, but these downgrades are somewhat irksome given the hype around them.

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Final Word

We hope that this Intel 13th gen laptop vs Ryzen 7000 series laptop CPU and APU guide has proven somewhat illuminating. We will be conducting our own independent benchmarking in our laptop and gaming laptop reviews of both of these series of hardware, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Intel 13th gen laptop vs Ryzen 7000 series laptop FAQs

Are Intel 13th gen laptops better than AMD?

The answer to this question very much depends on the specific laptop and CPU in the range, however it seems like the top-of-the-line AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX beats the Intel Core i9-13980HX in both single-core and multi-core scenarios.

With other SKUs however, this is not necessarily the case, and Intel laptops could win out.

Will Ryzen 7000 laptops be better than Intel 12th gen laptop?

Ryzen 7000 series processor SKUs are universally better than Intel 12th gen models. The new Ryzen CPUs are taking on Intel 13th gen laptop CPUs, beating them more often than not, so the previous generation of Intel 12th gen laptops are no match by comparison.