AMD has announced the availability of the company’s latest Ryzen 7045 HX-series (Dragon Range) processors for high-performance gaming laptops. Holding nothing back, the chipmaker claims that the Ryzen 9 7945HX provides, on average, 10% better gaming performance than Intel’s Core i9-13950HX (Raptor Lake).
It’s not the first time AMD has compared its 5nm Dragon Range chiplet processors to rivals from Intel. However, the earlier comparison was questionable as the chipmaker used Intel’s 12th-gen Alder Lake chips as points of comparison instead of the latest 13th-gen Raptor Lake parts. This time, AMD throws in the Ryzen 9 7945HX against the Core i9-13950HX, so it’s a fair fight.
Keep in mind, though, that the Core i9-13980HX is the flagship SKU of Intel’s mobile Raptor Lake lineup. There is a 100 MHz maximum turbo frequency difference between the Core i9-13980HX and the Core i9-13950HX, which puts the latter in second place in the Raptor Lake HX series product stack. Nonetheless, the Core i9-13950HX is still a better comparison for the Ryzen 9 7945HX, much better than the previous comparison where AMD threw it into the ring with the Core i9-12900HX (Alder Lake).
The Ryzen 9 7945HX powered the Asus Strix Scar G17 gaming laptop with 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 memory and a GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. On the other hand, the Core i9-13950HX was inside the similarly specced Gigabyte Aorus 17X . Additionally, AMD gaming tested Windows 11 at 1080p (1920×1080) resolution in 31 games at high settings. We recommend the usual level of caution in observing vendor-provided benchmarks.
Overall, the Ryzen 9 7945HX delivered 10% better gaming performance than the Core i9-13950HX. When we break down the results, it’s clear that the Zen 4 chip didn’t dominate across all titles, and at times the performance deltas were minimal. The best performance of the Ryzen 9 7945HX was in rainbow six siege, beating the Core i9-13950HX by a margin of 45%. The Zen 4 chip also showed its supremacy in dirt 5, civilization VI, cyberpunk 2077, and warhammer dow iii with yield margins of 30% and above.
Across four titles, the Ryzen 9 7945HX’s gaming performance was within 1% of the Core i9-13950HX. Meanwhile, the Raptor Lake chip was faster in far away 6 and red Dead Redemption 2, but the performance difference was between 2% and 4%.
The specifications can be misleading if consumers look only at the number of cores and clock speeds. For example, the Ryzen 9 7945HX has Zen 4 cores spread across a 16-core, 32-thread configuration. Meanwhile, the Core i9-13950HX looks impressive on paper due to its 24 cores. However, it is a hybrid chip; thus only eight of those cores are P cores and the rest are just E cores. The Core i9-13950HX also boasts higher clock speeds. The P cores of the Core i9-13950HX have a boost clock of 5.5 GHz, while the Ryzen 9 7945HX’s boost clock is 5.4 GHz.
Power metrics are also essential for context. The Ryzen 9 7945HX has a configurable TDP (cTDP) ranging from 55 W to 75 W. On the other hand, the Core i9-13950HX features a PBP (Processor Base Power) of 55 W, but the MTP (Max Turbo Power) is configured for a whopping 157 W. According to AMD benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 7945HX can deliver 10% faster performance than the Core i9-13950HX, but delivers it with less power, making the Ryzen 9 7945HX on an extremely power efficient performance chip that will delight notebook manufacturers.
Reviews of laptops with AMD’s Dragon Range processors will appear this month, as the chipmaker has already sent out samples to reviewers. So it won’t be long before we can validate AMD’s gaming claims and see if systems powered by them are among the best gaming laptops around.
