AMD claims its Ryzen 7 8840U can still beat Intel’s Core Ultra 7 155H (in some cases), despite using the same CPU & GPU as the previous-gen 7840U

AMD’s Ryzen 8040 “Hawk Point” series mobile processors are very similar to the company’s previous-gen Ryzen 7040 “Phoenix” series when it comes to CPU and GPU technology, core counts, and frequencies. The biggest difference is that the new chips have a neural processing unit that’s 60% faster, enabling better support for on-device AI processing.

But the thing is that those Ryzen 7040/8040 chips are still pretty good, even by 2024 standards. And AMD says its Ryzen 7 8840U processor can outperform Intel’s brand new Core Ultra 7 155H chip in many tests, even though Intel’s chip is based on brand new “Meteor Lake” architecture.

It’s always best to take benchmarks provided by chip makers with a grain of salt. But AMD says that the Ryzen 7 8840U comes out on top in select gaming, productivity, and AI benchmarks when comparing two computers with otherwise comparable hardware.

Here’s how the two chips stack up on paper:

While AMD’s new chips are a lot like their predecessors, Intel’s 14th-gen processors based on Meteor Lake architecture introduce a number of key changes from their 13th-gen “Raptor Lake” counterparts.

They have higher CPU core and thread counts, a new three-tier CPU design with Performance, Efficiency, and Low-Power Efficiency cores, and Intel Arc integrated graphics, which are expected to bring a big boost in graphics performance.

But according to AMD, a system that uses only integrated graphics should see up to 1.6X better gaming performance in Far Cry 6, 1.31X better performance in Borderlands 3, and 1.28x better performance in Hitman 3.

It’s worth keeping in mind that AMD was able to cherry-pick those benchmarks though. The company is only promising 1.02X better performance for League of Legends, for example… and doesn’t bother sharing any results for games where Intel’s processor came out on top. The fact that things were so close for at least one game, though, leads me to believe it’s highly likely that the Core Ultra 7 155H does excel in some games.

Also worth keeping in mind? That’s not Intel’s most powerful chip Meteor Lake chip. There’s also a Core Ultra 7 165H processor with higher CPU frequencies, and an upcoming Core Ultra 9 185H processor that will be able to hit even higher speeds, although it’s more power-hungry, with a processor base power setting of 45 watts.

Back to the Ryzen 7 8840U vs Core Ultra 7 155H comparison though, AMD is also promising better performance for at least some CPU tasks, with up 1.52X faster media transcoding with Handbrake or LAME, up to 1.41X the performance in Cinebench R24 or Blender, and up to a 1.15X higher score in Geekbench 6.

Meanwhile, AMD says its chips offer up to around 1.8X better performance-per-watt as measured by the Procyon Office Productivity benchmark, which could mean longer battery life or at least better performance in thin and light laptops.

Again, keep in mind that AMD was able to choose which benchmarks to highlight and which ones to hide though. Real-world results may vary depending on the activity and other hardware in your computer.

But it still seems like AMD’s current-gen mobile chips will be at least somewhat competitive with Intel’s 2024 lineup in at least some cases, even though Meteor Lake represents a bigger leap for Intel than Hawk Point does for AMD.

Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising though, as it looks like Intel’s big improvements for 2024 seem to be more focused on the GPU and NPU than the CPU, which may actually support fewer instructions-per-clock than last year’s chips.