Let’s find out what the differences are between the Intel i5-9300H and AMD Ryzen 7 3750H laptop processors.
Starting with the specs, we can see that both have 4 cores and 8 threads. Both have similar clock speeds, the i5 has a 100MHz faster base and max single core boost.
The i5 also has a higher power limit, although as these are different architectures these aren’t directly comparable. The Intel chip is based on their 14nm++ architecture, has double the L3 cache, and the platform also uses slightly faster memory which should give it an edge.
The laptops I’m testing with are the ASUS TUF FX505DU for the Ryzen 7 3750H, and I bought a Lenovo Y7000 for the Intel i5-9300H on sale so I finally have an i5 to compare with.
Both laptops have Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti graphics with the same driver version and 16gb of memory in dual channel.
We’ll start with the games, then other applications such as rendering, video editing, thermals, power draw and clock speeds afterwards.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s built in benchmark tool.
I’ve got the Intel i5-9300H in the top purple bar, and the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H below in the red bar. In combined CPU and GPU workloads like gaming, the i5 runs with a 45w TDP while the 3750H runs at 35w.
At low settings the i5 has a nice 30% lead, as lower settings tend to be more CPU bound. At ultra settings though, the difference is much lower, where the i5 is now 7% faster.
See also: gtx 1650 vs 1650 ti
Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode running through the same section of the game on both machines.
Again the i5 was ahead at all setting levels, with 14% higher average FPS at ultra settings, though this increases significantly to a 39% lead with the low setting preset in use, though there was less of a change seen to 1% low performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested using the built in benchmark, again this test was following the trend of bigger differences between the two as we step down the setting levels.
Even at max settings though, the i5 was offering a 20% higher average frame rate, rising to a much higher 43% boost at lowest settings.
Apex Legends was tested by running through the same section of the map in all instances.
There was less of a difference at lower settings in this game because both were able to hit the 144 FPS frame cap at times, which I didn’t disable. With all settings at maximum, the i5 was 13% faster compared to the AMD option, though realistically above 100 FPS maxed out is a great result from either.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare was also tested with maximum or minimum settings.
The difference in average FPS was on the lower side out of the games tested, just 8% faster at max settings on the i5, then an 11% boost with everything at minimum. There was a larger difference noted in the 1% lows, where the i5 was 30% ahead at minimum settings.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested using the games benchmark, and as a test that I’ve noted to be more CPU bound, there’s a fair 17% improvement to average FPS at max settings.
At all other setting levels, the 1% low performance is near even the average that the 3750H was able to offer.
Control was tested running through the same area of the game on both machines.
This game saw a smaller than average difference compared to most of the other games tested, with the i5 coming out just 6% faster in average FPS at high settings, which is only 3 FPS. There was a bigger 12% boost at low settings though, and the 1% low also had a decent 23% boost with the i5.
Borderlands 3 was tested with the built in benchmark and follows the same pattern as many other titles tested, in that there’s a larger difference between the two at the lower setting levels.
At very low settings, the i5 was 29% faster than the Ryzen 7, and this lowers to a 12% higher average FPS at max settings. It’s worth noting the huge gains to 1% low performance between very low and medium with the Intel i5, which aren’t too far behind the averages from the 3750H.
Fortnite was tested using the replay feature, different replay files but running through the same part of the game on both laptops.
At minimum settings there’s a massive difference, the i5 laptop was 48% faster in terms of average FPS, and even the 1% low result was very close to the average from the Ryzen chip. The gap narrows in as we step up to higher setting levels though, with epic settings just 12% faster with the Intel processor, but the 1% lows are much closer together now compared to the lower presets.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint was tested using the games benchmark tool.
Once more the i5 is winning in most tests, but wait! Interestingly the 3750H was consistently ahead when it came to 1% low performance with the ultimate preset, and it tied at ultra. I mean it’s not far ahead, but it was interesting that it came out ahead at all given all previous results.
Similar interesting results were seen in The Witcher 3, where the 1% lows were ahead at all setting levels with the Ryzen 7 3750H.
In any case, the averages are still a fair amount ahead with the i5, which was 17% faster in this regard at low settings, and 14.5% ahead at ultra.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the games benchmark tool with the latest Vulkan option.
Like some of the other games, there were huge gains with the i5 at lowest settings. Even the 1% low was ahead of the average from the 3750H, while the average FPS on the i5 was 45% ahead. This lowers to a 13% higher average frame rate with the i5 at ultra settings, so much lower comparatively but still a good lead.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and is a game that really cares about CPU power, so it was no surprise that this game saw one of the largest differences out of all titles tested on the i5.
There was a massive 68% higher average FPS from the i5 with both laptops at minimum settings, and it was still 58% faster with all settings maxed out, though 1% low differences are much closer together comparatively.
Dota 2 is another game that typically relies more on CPU power than GPU.
Interestingly the performance gap widens as we step up through the setting levels, a behaviour I’ve seen from this game before in other testing which is a bit different to the other titles tested. Anyway at minimum settings the i5 was 11% faster than the Ryzen 7, but at max settings the i5 was now 48% faster, so a much larger difference with the Intel based laptop at higher settings.
Overwatch was tested playing in the practice range, and while this performs better than actual gameplay it allows me to more accurately perform the exact same test run, perfect for a comparison like this.
There was only a small 2% higher average FPS with the i5 at the highest epic settings, while low settings saw a bigger difference with the i5 now 25.5% faster. I’ll also note that the 1% low from the 3750H was ahead of the i5 at epic and ultra settings, so I think that’s 3 games now where this interesting behaviour was observed at higher presets.
These are the differences to average FPS over all 15 games tested. On average with the highest setting levels in use, the Intel i5-9300H was almost 18% faster than the Ryzen 7 3750H.
As we can see here, the results really vary by game. Those huge CS:GO and Dota 2 results are definitely helping raise the average, but for the most part there’s a fair improvement to be had with the i5 processor.
As we saw throughout the games, there was generally a larger difference with the lowest possible settings. At minimum in these same titles the 9300H was now 28% faster in terms of average FPS when compared to the 3750H. This is simply because generally lower settings are more sensitive to CPU performance.
To be fair I doubt you’d need to play many if any of these games at lower settings with the 1660 Ti I’ve used here, but both these processors are also available with lower tier graphics like the 1050 or 1650, so CPU choice will matter more there.
The 3750H isn’t bad at gaming, as shown in most titles it’s offering a good experience, the i5 is simply better, so it will come down to things like price difference which we’ll look at later.
Let’s move into those productivity workloads with Cinebench R20.
I’ve got the Ryzen 7 3750H down the bottom and Intel i5-9300H up the top. I need to note that in CPU only workloads my i5 machine would boost up to 60 watts when the GPU is idle, I couldn’t cap it to 45 watts, which was the case in the game tests previously. Anyway in this test the i5 was 7% faster in single core and just under 11% faster for multicore.
I’ve also tested Cinebench R15 as many people still use it, so these numbers can be used for comparison.
The i5 was 10% faster than the 3750H in single core and 7% faster in terms of multicore performance.
I’ve run the BMW and Classroom benchmarks with blender, and it’s another win for the i5.
The BMW benchmark wasn’t completing all that much faster though, it was only 4% quicker on the i5, while the Classroom test was 7% faster.
I’ve used Adobe Premiere to export 4K video.
The integrated graphics in the i5 can be leveraged with quick sync to boost performance in this workload, which is shown by the much faster result up the top. With quick sync enabled, the i5 is a massive 227% faster than the Ryzen chip. If we disable the Intel graphics though, the 9300H was still 19% faster in this fairer comparison.
I’ve also used the warp stabilizer effect in Adobe Premiere which basically uses a single core to smooth out a clip.
The i5 was just 3% faster in this test, likely owing to its slightly higher single core turbo boost speed.
Adobe Photoshop was tested with the Puget systems benchmark.
In this test the i5 was reaching an overall score that was almost 15% higher than the 3750H. There is a GPU component to this test, but I ran it with the discrete graphics disabled so these are CPU and iGPU results only.
Handbrake was used to convert a 4K video file to 1080p, and then a separate 1080p file to 720p.
The i5 was 11.6% faster with the 4K file, then a little quicker with the 1080p file, running almost 15% faster now.
The V-Ray benchmark uses the CPU to render out a scene, so another multicore heavy test.
This time the i5 was scoring 15% higher when compared against the 3750H.
Another benchmark that renders out a scene with the processor, with more of a difference this time as the i5 was almost 21% faster than the Ryzen laptop.
I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression and decompression speeds.
The decompression speed was actually faster with the Ryzen 7 3750H, so the first win for it outside of some of the 1% lows in the gaming results earlier. Compression was faster with the i5 though, which had a large 35% boost.
VeraCrypt was used to test AES encryption and decryption speeds.
The differences were fairly minor here, though the i5 was ahead for both and was around 5% quicker.
GeekBench was 13% faster for the single core score with the i5, with a larger 21% improvement in the multicore test.
Here’s a summary of all of the applications just tested.
On average over these tests, the Intel i5-9300H was 22.3% faster than the Ryzen 7 3750H. That overall percentage isn’t too useful though as it includes both single and multicore tests, plus it’s being held up by that massive Adobe Premiere improvement which was due to the software’s support of quicksync.
If we look at the results without that large Adobe difference, the 9300H was 11.5% faster on average out of these applications.
When we look at the total power drawn from the wall with the heavy multicore Blender test running, the i5 was drawing 24% more power from the wall when compared to the Ryzen option, so 24% more power required for a 4% speed boost in this particular workload.
These are the average clock speeds while running the same blender benchmark.
The results are quite close together, but as mentioned earlier this isn’t all that comparable due to architecture differences.
Likewise the temperatures are also pretty useless as both laptops tested have completely different cooling solutions, but given the i5 does use more power it makes sense for it to produce more heat.
Finally let’s discuss price differences. Prices will change over time. The ASUS TUF FX505DU I tested here goes for about $900 USD, granted this one has half the memory so it’s probably a bit more for 16gb.
This config of the Y7000 doesn’t appear to be sold in the US, but it’s basically the same as the Y540 as I’ve shown in a previous comparison, and that’s around $1010 USD, or 12% more money.
However at the same time you can also get the i5 and 1660 Ti combo for the same $900 price point. Assuming we compare the Y540 which is similar to what I used, it’s 12% more money for an average 18% higher frame rate in games at max settings, 28% higher average FPS at minimum settings, and about 11% better performance in other applications without considering Adobe Premiere quick sync result.
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Personally I think that’s worth it, and given you can pick up the i5 for the same money as the 3750H machine, it’s starting to look like the better deal.
So to summarise, the Ryzen 7 3750H doesn’t look good when compared to the Intel i5-9300H for similar money. Let’s hope the upcoming launch of AMD’s Ryzen 4000 mobile processors offers better competition, I’ve got my numbers ready to compare. Laptops featuring the 3750H are in general cheaper than the i5, but that’s not always the case. Depending on the price, a Ryzen based laptop could be attractive, however if you can justify a bit more for the i5, as we’ve seen, it does have more to offer. Let me know which of these two CPUs you’d pick and why down in the comments.
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