United Kingdom
India
Italia
Deutschland
France
Canada
España
Australia
България
中国
日本
[Comparison] Intel Core i3-1215U vs AMD Ryzen 3 5300U – AMD doesn’t give up
The Alder Lake U-series is supposed to be the most efficient Intel CPUs, but from our little experience with them, we haven’t been impressed so far. Today, however, we will be evaluating the performance of the new Core i3-1215U, which is a 6-core/8-thread CPU.
If those numbers look weird to you, it’s because Intel’s new Efficiency cores don’t support Hyperthreading, leading to some strange specs sheets. Going against it is a proven combatant in the CPU space, which has saved many budget laptops from poor performance. The Ryzen 3 5300Um despite using the older Zen 2 architecture, is a pretty powerful chip. Will it, however, have enough gas in the tank to strike a blow to Alder Lake’s dominance.
Today, we compare the Intel Core i3-1215U against the AMD Ryzen 3 5300U.
You can take a look at our Top Laptop CPU Ranking, where we showcase the best and the newest laptop processors.
You can find more information about both CPUs here: Intel Core i3-1215U / AMD Ryzen 3 5300U
Specs table
| Intel Core i3-1215U | AMD Ryzen 3 5300U | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Alder Lake-U | Zen 2 |
| Cores / Threads | 6/8 | 4/8 |
| Clock Speeds – Base/Boost | 0.90 – 4.40GHz | 2.60 – 3.80GHz |
| Cache | 10MB | 6MB |
| Lithography | 10nm | 7nm |
| TDP | 15W | 15W |
| Memory type | DDR5-4800, LPDDR5-5200 DDR4–3200MHz LPDDR4x–4266MHz | DDR4-3200MHz, LPDDR4x-3733MHz |
| Integrated GPU | Intel UHD Graphics (Alder Lake, 64EU) | AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 (R4000/5000, 15W) |
CPU benchmarks
The Ryzen 3, which uses a nearly 3-year-old architecture, manages to win out against the Core i3 CPU, scoring 38% higher in Cinebench 20 and being 0.6 seconds quicker in Photoshop.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU benchmarks
Moving into the iGPU tests, we see the Intel pull ahead, thanks to the newer Xe-HPG architecture, resulting in leads of 26% in 3DMark Fire Strike, and 31% in Unigine Superposition.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel UHD Graphics (Alder Lake, 64EU) – Core i3-1215U | 129 fps (+12%) | 93 fps (+43%) | 55 fps (+25%) |
| AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 (Ryzen 4000/5000, 15W) – Ryzen 3 5300U | 110 fps | 65 fps | 44 fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel UHD Graphics (Alder Lake, 64EU) – Core i3-1215U | 136 fps (+24%) | 84 fps (+27%) | 44 fps (+26%) |
| AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 (Ryzen 4000/5000, 15W) – Ryzen 3 5300U | 110 fps | 66 fps | 35 fps |
Conclusion
The Ryzen 3 5300U has the raw computational performance to stand ahead of the Core i3-1215U in CPU-intensive tasks. However, the newer iGPU inside the Core i3 is quite a bit better, scoring better in both the synthetic GPU benchmarks as well as the gaming tests. This win gives us a very optimistic view of newer Ryzen chips, as, despite Intel dominating the high-end field and the H-series CPUs, AMD can absolutely dominate in the ULV-space, with the new RDNA 2 iGPUs solidifying its performance even further.
