AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS vs Intel Core i5-12500H: Which is the best laptop CPU for gaming?

Picture of AMD Ryzen 7000 series HS CPUs in ASUS TUF Gaming  A16
AMD Ryzen 7000 series HS CPUs in ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (Image via AMD)

The AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS and Intel Core i5-12500H are two of the most popular CPUs in most budget gaming laptops found today. The notebooks with these processors are priced close to each other but are vastly different from a technological point of view. They have different core counts, cache sizes, integrated GPUs, and more. The two processors are also based on two completely different architectures.

Which is the best laptop CPU for gaming? This article goes into an in-depth comparison between the two processors to find which is the best for gaming.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and solely reflect the writer's opinions.


AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS vs Intel Core i5-12500H

The AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS is based on the Zen 3+ architecture designed for laptops and has better power efficiency than the standard Zen 3. On the other hand, the Core i5-12500H is based on the Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake architecture that brought a significant performance boost compared to its 11th geb CPUs.

All that said, before we check how the two processors perform in gaming, let's look at their specs first.

Specs comparison

AMD Ryzen 7000 series HS CPUs work better with Radeon GPUs (Image via AMD)
AMD Ryzen 7000 series HS CPUs work better with Radeon GPUs (Image via AMD)

The Ryzen 5 7535HS has six cores, but the Intel Core i5-12500H has double the cores, thanks to its use of P and E-cores. Here are the full specs of the two CPUs:

SpecificationsAMD Ryzen 5 7535HSIntel Core i5-12500H
Cores612 (4 P-cores + 8 E-cores)
Threads1216 (8 P-Core threads +8 E-Core threads)
Max frequency4.55 GHz4.5 GHz
L3 cache16 MB18 MB
RAM supportDDR5-4800
LPDDR5-6400
DDR4-3200
LPDDR4X-4266
DDR5-4800
LPDDR5-5200
Max RAM capacity64 GB64 GB
Thermal design power (TDP)35W45W
Manufacturing node6nm10nm

The major difference between the two CPUs is their architecture, core counts, and the type of cores they have. The Intel Core i5-12500H has a hybrid core architecture of P and E-cores, where the P-cores are performance cores and E-cores are for efficiency.

Intel's core architecture may look unnecessarily complicated, but it's all handled in the background by the company's Thread Director, which is built into Windows 11.

On the other hand, the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS has the good old standard core architecture, and there's no hybridization underneath.


Performance benchmarks

Intel Core i5-12500H in ASUS TUF Gaming laptops (Image via ASUS)
Intel Core i5-12500H in ASUS TUF Gaming laptops (Image via ASUS)

The specs don't always translate to real-world performance, so let's check out some popular benchmarks, such as Cinebench, PassMark, and more, for the two laptop CPUs:

BenchmarksAMD Ryzen 5 7535HSIntel Core i5-12500H
Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)14831688
Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)
1083013108
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
20062180
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
7666 9527
PassMark (Single-Core)
3181 3480
PassMark (Multi-Core)
18371 21250

In single-core benchmarks, the Intel Core i5-12500H is 10% faster on average than the other, while it is 19% faster on average in multi-core benchmarks. So, the Intel processor has a decent lead in CPU performance over the Ryzen, which also affects the gaming performance.

The single-core performance usually leans heavily into gaming benchmarks as well. So, expect the Intel Core i5-12500H to provide 10% higher performance over the Ryzen 5 7535HS, so long as the two laptops have the same GPU, RAM speed, RAM capacity, and a similar thermal system.


Price

Notebooks with both processors are priced close to each other as long as the system configurations are similar. Any notebook with these processes will have a budget price tag, so there's no need to worry about the pricing.


Which is the best laptop CPU for gaming?

AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS in HP Victus 15 (Image via ASUS)
AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS in HP Victus 15 (Image via ASUS)

The Core i5-12500H is the faster CPU and the benchmarking tests prove it. The Intel processor scored consistently higher points in every benchmark, including Cinebench, Geekbench, and even PassMark, compared to the Ryzen processor.

That said, since laptops with different CPUs don't have the same voltage tuning and cooling system, the actual gaming performance could be higher on the Intel or just the same. Even the RAM speed could influence the performance. There are too many factors in a notebook, hence the gaming performance can vary.

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Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul
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