We already knew what a beast the Dragon Range AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX APU is, after testing it extensively against rivals like the Raptor Lake Intel Core i9-13980HX and i9-13950HX. Now the Zen 4 processor has appeared in the PassMark benchmark database, with three samples offering impressive results but with a high margin of error. The laptop processor, with an RDNA2-based AMD Radeon 610M iGPU, managed a single-threaded test score of 4,405 and a CPU Mark multi-test suite score of 61,985. The website lists the Ryzen 9 7945HX as having a maximum TDP of 55W, but the 16-core, 32-thread part can be configured up to 75W.
Despite having a higher boost clock of 5.6 GHz (Ryzen 9 7945HX: 5.4 GHz), the Intel Core i9-13980HX falls behind in single-threaded tests. Its score of 4,398 is close to that of Team Red’s Dragon Range chip, but this is a processor with a maximum turbo power of 157W (although PassMark records a maximum of 55W here). While the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX only has a minuscule +0.16% advantage in the single-threaded matchup, it sports a massive +26.6% advantage over the Raptor Lake processor in CPU Mark (61,985 against 48,954). In fact, the Zen 4 APU is so powerful that it can be compared to a modern Intel desktop processor – the new i9-13900KS no less.
There have been many cases of laptop processors outperforming previous generation or mainstream desktop parts, but this is the Dragon Range mobile and Raptor Lake desktop. Unsurprisingly, the Intel Core i9-13900KS with its maximum clock speed of up to 6.0GHz and potential for 253W TDP (recorded at 125W in PassMark) can have a reasonable advantage over the Ryzen 9 7945HX in single-threaded tests: 4,809 vs. 4,405 or +9.17%. However, this Zen 4 mobile APU can still beat a desktop i7-13700K in this particular discipline, and is even more of a contender in the CPU Mark test suite.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX’s excellent score of 61,985 on the multitest puts it within striking distance of Intel’s 24-core desktop processor. With a score of 62,166, the power-hungry i9-13900KS desktop is just +0.29% ahead of a much more efficient mobile processor. There may be some who complain about comparing a mobile chip to a desktop part, but AMD has created such a formidable unit with the Ryzen 9 7945HX that it only seems fair right now. It’s also worth remembering that this powerful laptop-class processor comes with 64MB of L3 cache.
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