15 specifications

AMD Ryzen 5 5600H vs AMD Ryzen 7 4800H

On paper, the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H has more cores (8 against 6), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H carries more L3 cache. Specifications describe what each chip is designed to do; how much of that either one holds under continuous load is a separate question.

10 specifications · 4 with a higher side

Full specifications

AMD Ryzen 5 5600H

AMD · Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne, Zen 3) · Laptop

Full specifications

AMD Ryzen 7 4800H

AMD · Ryzen 4000 (Renoir, Zen 2) · Laptop

Cores and clocks

Cores

Threads

Base clock

3.3 GHz

2.9 GHz

Boost clock

4.2 GHz

Cache and power

L3 cache

16 MB

8 MB

TDP

35 to 54 W

Platform

Socket

FP6

Process

7 nm

Integrated graphics

AMD Radeon Graphics (7 CU)

Launched

2021-01-12

2020-03-16

A check marks the higher figure only on rows where higher is unambiguously better. Rows without one are not ties; they are specifications where “better” has no meaning.

Reading the table

What the difference means.

A year apart

The Ryzen 5 5600H (Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne, Zen 3), 2021) is a year newer than the Ryzen 7 4800H (Ryzen 4000 (Renoir, Zen 2), 2020). That matters more than any single row in the table, because a newer design usually does more work in each clock cycle. Clock speeds are only a fair comparison between chips of the same generation; across generations, a lower number on the newer chip can still be the faster core.

Cores and threads

The Ryzen 7 4800H has 8 cores and 16 threads against 6 and 12. More threads help with work that can be split into many pieces at once: rendering, compiling, video export, running several heavy programs together. They do little for work that runs on a few threads, which includes most games and most everyday software, where the speed of one core decides the result.

Cache

The Ryzen 5 5600H carries 16 MB of L3 cache against 8 MB. Cache is fast memory on the chip, and a larger one means the cores wait on main memory less often. Games, large spreadsheets and compiling respond to it; rendering and video export, which stream through data in order, respond much less.

Power and cooling

Both are rated at 54 W, so they ask the same of a cooler and a power supply. The rating is the heat to be moved for the chip to hold its speed; both draw above it in short bursts, and either one slows down rather than fails when the cooling falls short.

Platform

Laptop processors are soldered to the board, so this is a choice between machines, not between chips you can swap. What differs between two laptops with these parts is mostly the power limit and the cooling the maker gave each one.

Which to pick, on paper

Rendering, compiling, video export: Ryzen 7 4800H; 16 threads against 12. Work that uses every thread scales with how many there are.

What no table says

How much of its speed a processor keeps after the first minute depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in. If you own one of these, measure it: the test is free and runs in this browser.

Free CPU stress test

Questions

Is the Ryzen 5 5600H better than the Ryzen 7 4800H?: By need, on the specifications: rendering, compiling, video export: the Ryzen 7 4800H. No specification says how much speed either one keeps under a long load; that depends on the cooling and the power limit of the machine it is in, and it is what a sustained test measures.
Do the Ryzen 5 5600H and the Ryzen 7 4800H use the same socket?: Laptop processors are soldered in place, so neither can be swapped for the other.
Does the Ryzen 5 5600H or the Ryzen 7 4800H have integrated graphics?: Both do: AMD Radeon Graphics (7 CU) on the Ryzen 5 5600H and AMD Radeon Graphics (7 CU) on the Ryzen 7 4800H.

More comparisons

Every figure on this table is a design target. None of it is a measurement.

Nothing above describes how a processor behaves twenty minutes into a sustained workload, which is where two chips with nearly identical specifications routinely diverge. A boost clock is a ceiling the vendor permits, not a rate the chip sustains, and whether it holds depends on the cooling, the case, the power profile and the room. None of those appear on a specification sheet.

We deliberately do not reduce these figures to a single score. A composite invented from specifications would look authoritative and measure nothing, and choosing the weights would be choosing the winner.

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