AMD Claims Dragon Range, Rembrandt-R CPUs Are Faster Than Alder Lake

AMD Claims Dragon Range, Rembrandt-R CPUs Are Faster Than Alder Lake

AMD’s latest marketing materials claim the Ryzen 7045 series (Dragon Range) and Ryzen 7035 series (Rembrandt-R) are faster than Intel’s 12th Generation Alder Lake chips. Dragon Range (Zen 4, RDNA 2) is almost 2X faster than Alder Lake HX, whereas Rembrandt-R (Zen 3+, RDNA 2) offers more than twice the performance of Alder Lake-P.

It seems weird that AMD would compare its next-generation processors to Alder Lake, Intel’s last-generation parts, instead of the latest 13th Generation Raptor Lake chips. However, the documents show that AMD did its testing in December 2022; therefore, the chipmaker may not have had access to Raptor Lake-powered laptops. And of course, if updated testing with Raptor Lake laptops changed the story, why not skip those?

Regarding testing environments, the Dragon Range laptops used DDR5-5200 memory, and the Raptor Lake laptops with DDR5-4800 memory, the default memory specifications for both microarchitectures. In any event, throw some salt over these vendor-provided benchmarks.

The Ryzen 9 7945HX, which AMD touts as “the world’s most powerful mobile processor,” is the flagship SKU for Dragon Range. The Ryzen 9 7945HX delivers between 18% to 169% higher performance than the Core i9-12900HX in AMD’s tests. Multi-core performance is the Ryzen 9 7945HX’s forte. In single-core performance, however, the Ryzen 9 7945HX is only 2% faster (Cinebench R23 1T) than the Core i9-12900HX.

Regarding the generation-over-generation uplift, the Ryzen 9 7945HX provides between 41% to 211% more performance than the Ryzen 9 6900HX. It’s evident that the Zen 4 cores on the former bring significant performance gains over the last-generation chip. In addition, consumers can experience single-core and multi-core improvements (measured with Cinebench R23) of up to 22% and 123%, respectively.

For those interested in integrated graphics performance, the Ryzen 9 7945HX is substantially faster than the Ryzen 9 6900HX. With low settings, AMD measured improvements between 29% to 62% at 1080p. The Ryzen 9 7945HX has the Radeon 610M with two RDNA 2 CUs clocked at up to 2.2 GHz, while the Ryzen 9 6900HX sports the Radeon 680M with 12 RDNA CUs maxing out at 2.4 GHz. The Ryzen 9 7945HX has an inferior iGPU, so the higher gaming performance is because of the Dragon Range’s Zen 4 cores rather than the graphics unit.

Consumers can expect superior performance across the Dragon Range stack compared to Alder Lake. AMD’s selection of Intel chips for the remaining comparisons is interesting. While the company uses the Core i9-12900HX for contrast, it prefers to compare the Ryzen 7 7745HX and Ryzen 5 7645HX to the Core i7-12700H and Core i5-12500H, respectively. AMD could have easily used the Core i7-12650HX or Core i5-12600HX.

According to AMD, the Ryzen 7 7745HX outperforms the Core i7-12700H by up to 6% in single-core workloads and up to 25% in multi-core workloads. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 5 7645HX should be faster than the Core i5-12500H, offering 7% higher single-core performance and 9% better multi-core performance.

Strangely, AMD didn’t provide benchmark results for the Ryzen 9 7845HX, the 12-core, 24-thread Dragon Range chip. However, the chipmaker assesses that the Ryzen 9 7845HX, like the Ryzen 9 7945HX, is the direct competition to Intel’s Core i9-12900HX.

The Ryzen 7035 series are rewarmed chips with Zen 3+ cores and RDNA 2 graphics that target premium thin and light laptops. These are AMD’s HS-series and U-series parts that may not be big on performance, but they’re great in battery life.

AMD asserts that the Ryzen 7 7735U provides up to 87% faster overall performance than Intel’s Core i7-1270P. The chipmaker’s results reveal up to 72% better productivity and up to 33% higher digital content creation performance. The individual benchmark results show margins between 17% to 240% more performance over the Core i7-1270P.

The Ryzen 7 7735U is also superior to the Core i7-1280P in integrated graphics performance. Given AMD’s expertise in the integrated graphics field, it would not be comforting if it wasn’t so. The Ryzen 7 7735U pumps 44% higher 1080p gaming performance over the Core i7-1280P. In addition, the RDNA 2-based processor flaunts 15% to 108% higher performance margins than the Core i7-1280P across ten different titles.

AMD positions the Ryzen 5 7535U against the Core i5-1250P. The chipmaker’s assessment shows the Ryzen 5 7535U offers 75% higher overall performance, 58% improved productivity, and 8% faster digital content creation. In addition, in the eight different benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 7535U outpaced the Core i5-1250P by 11% to 229%, depending on the nature of the workload.

The first gaming laptops with Dragon Range will launch this month. So far, we know of the Alienware m16 and m18, Asus Strix, and Lenovo Legion devices that will leverage AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 7495HX processor. We can expect more announcements in the coming weeks.

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