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Intel Alder Lake smashes AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX — but at a cost

Monica J. White
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The upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX Zen 3+ APU has been spotted in a leaked benchmark, giving us the first look at the expected performance of the chip.

The benchmark results are interesting. Ryzen 9 6900HX easily defeats its predecessor, but it falls short when it comes to competing against Intel Alder Lake. However, it still has the upper hand in terms of power requirements.

AMD Ryzen processor going into a socket.
AMD

AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX was found in a leaked Geekbench 5 test as part of a Lenovo 82RG laptop equipped with 32GB of memory and running Windows 11 Pro. It was first spotted by BenchLeaks on Twitter. The new AMD APU managed to score 1,616 points in the single-core test and 10,151 in the multi-core test.

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These benchmark results bode well for AMD’s latest flagship APU. This is especially clear when comparing the Ryzen 9 6900HX to its predecessor, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX. The previous iteration of the APU scored 1,417 points in single-threaded tests and 7,685 points in multi-threaded tests, so we’re seeing a massive increase for the 6900HX. In short: The new APU is up to 14% faster in single-core operations and 33% faster in multi-core operations.

Things go south when comparing the APU to the newly released Intel Alder Lake laptop CPU, the Intel Core i9-12900H. Intel’s flagship processor scored 1,962 and 14,542 points in single-core and multi-core benchmarks respectively. This puts Intel at a huge advantage in terms of raw numbers, adding up to a 21% edge in single-core performance and 44% in multi-core performance.

Geekbench results for the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX APU.
Image source: Geekbench

It’s hard to disagree that this means grim news for the new AMD APU, but there are redeeming factors to consider before making a verdict one way or another. First, it’s important to note that these benchmark results may not be accurate. As more tests start pouring in, we will be able to make a more accurate estimate of the APUs performance. However, the biggest advantage that AMD has over Intel right now is related to the power consumption of the new APU.

Intel Core i9-12900H has a maximum turbo power of 115 watts. Compared to the 45W+ TDP of the AMD APU, the Intel Alder Lake processor will likely consume a lot more power. This may result in higher thermals and shorter battery life, giving AMD the lead when it comes to catering to gamers who like to play on the move. Intel users may be more reliant on having a power socket nearby, especially if gaming in turbo mode — the Core i9-12900H also has a base TDP of 45W.

The new AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX APU is the flagship, high-end offering within the upcoming AMD Rembrandt-H line of laptop APUs. The processors from that lineup are equipped with new and upgraded Zen 3+ 6nm cores. The processor within the APU offers eight cores and16 threads, 16MB of L3 cache, 4MB of L2 cache, and improved clock speeds. We can expect clocks of up to 3.30 GHz base and up to 4.9GHz in boost mode. Of course, the 45W TDP will definitely increase in boost mode.

Being an APU, the new Ryzen offering also packs a lot of punch in the graphics department. It comes equipped with AMD RDNA 2 graphics, with the most high-end models sporting a Radeon 680M GPU. The GPU is clocked at around 2GHz and has been estimated to offer similar gaming power to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The APUs will also support LPDDR4X and DDR5 memory.

Although Intel continues to be in the lead all across the board, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of AMD this year. As more benchmarks emerge, we will obtain a clearer overview of the performance of this APU.

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Monica J. White
Monica J. White
Computing Writer
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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