AMD Ryzen 6000 U Tested: The Ideal Chip for Ultraportables?

AMD’s Ryzen 6000 mobile processors have been on the market for several months following their unveiling at CES in January. First it was the powerful H series chips that showed up in gaming rigs and workstations, and now the lower-power U series tier is becoming available in consumer laptops.

We finally have the first test unit in hand, so we can tell you exactly the kind of performance you can expect from a Ryzen 6000 U series laptop. AMD sent us an Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED tester laptop with this fresh silicon, and we ran the rule over its performance with our suite of benchmark tests.

(Photo: Joseph Maldonado)

How does it stack up to the previous-generation 5000 U series, not to mention its more potent H series siblings and its Intel rivals? Read on for the results.

Where the 6000 U Series Fits In the Ryzen Landscape

Let's establish what it is exactly we're testing here, especially for those who haven't been keeping up. The image below shows the full Ryzen laptop stack for 2022, as revealed by AMD at CES earlier this year…

The 6000 U series processors were teased then, even though their availability in laptops would come later than those H series chips revealed alongside them. You’ll also note some 5000 U series chips in there, included because they are among the CPUs you’ll find in AMD laptops in 2022. They're of course not part of the latest 6000 series, as they use a previous-generation processor architecture (more on that below).

That table shows that after subtracting the U series chips from the 5000 family, we're actually left with just two brand-new 6000 U series chips, the Ryzen 5 6600U and the Ryzen 7 6800U. The latter is what we received in the ZenBook for testing. You are free to find only two new chips here a little underwhelming, but we would say that when taken with the 5000 U and 6000 H stack in total, the full picture makes sense. This isn’t a full platform launch after all, but nestling a specifically purposed tier into a full processor lineup for the relatively few new AMD-powered laptops that are likely to launch through the rest of the year.

Generally speaking, U series chips on both the AMD and Intel side are found in thin, portability-first systems. The lower wattage ceilings are a good match for the lower thermal limits of these smaller laptops. You don’t need a load of variation at the U series level of laptops, and if you're configuring a new custom-build laptop or evaluating specs of ready-to-ship ones, you can drop down to an older Ryzen or up to an H chip as needed. The ideal use case for the latest U series processor is about getting the most performance you can out of a thin, ultraportable notebook.

You can also see that these two new chips are built on AMD’s Zen 3 Plus architecture as opposed to the Zen 3 architecture of the 5000 series. The differences between Zen 3 and Zen 3 Plus aren't substantial, so we won’t retread them (you can read about the differences in the Ryzen 6000 launch explainer), but they are worth noting. The architecture change also means that the 6000 U series comes with improved RDNA 2 graphics as opposed to the previous Radeon Vega solution.

The core and thread counts on the 6600 U and the 6800 U match their equivalent 6000 H series siblings, though with lower clock speeds and of course notably lower wattages. The latter is the true deciding factor for where processor performance tops out, and is the spec most limited by a laptop’s physical chassis; more power produces more heat. The 15- to 28-watt range of these CPUs is dictated by the thinner (and thus more thermally limited) laptops they will appear in.

We haven’t tested many Ryzen 6000 H series laptops yet; the 2022 edition of the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is the marquee system with one such chip thus far. Nonetheless, they have been on the market in some form since then, and delivered generally strong results. Let’s see how our U series test model stacks up.

How the Ryzen 7 6800U ZenBook Stacks Up

As mentioned, the Asus ZenBook model provided to us for 6000 U series testing is equipped with the more powerful of the two new chips, the Ryzen 7 6800U. This should, roughly, be peak performance for a U series laptop at this size. We’ll compare it to the relevant laptops in the table below…

This selection of competitors represents a bit of everything. Most obviously, we have the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and its 6000 HS processor, demonstrating what the higher power tier in this generation can do. As a gaming laptop, it will also easily set the high bar for graphics performance in this batch—these other laptops with integrated graphics won’t be able to match.

The rest should be much closer in performance to the 6800U. The HP Pavilion Aero is the one to look at to gauge the generational jump, as it’s running AMD’s 5000 Series equivalent (the 5800U) in a 13-inch laptop. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon uses the same CPU, but in a slightly larger 14-inch chassis—the bigger form factor may provide higher performance potential thanks to better cooling.

(Photo: Joseph Maldonado)

Then we have two Intel chips. First, the Acer Aspire Vero is running an Intel Core i7-1195G7. This is roughly a Ryzen U series equivalent (the G denotes a superior integrated graphics chip but the processing power is in the same tier) and runs up to 28 watts. This is an 11th Generation “Tiger Lake” processor, not Intel’s latest 12th Generation; we have yet to test an Alder Lake U series processor. But these types of G processors are also found in many thinner laptops from the last couple of years, making this comparison plenty relevant if anyone is looking at upgrading.

We also have the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 and its Intel Core i7-1260P. The P series is an Alder Lake addition for laptops of this type, even though there will still be 12th Generation U series chips, too. For 12th Generation processors, U series will max out at 15 watts, while the P series CPUs are configured at 28 watts, like the Ryzen 6000 U series. This has to do with the way Intel has rearranged its hierarchy, naming structure, and architecture for the 12th Generation. Performance these days has become much more complex than simple core and thread counts; you can read more about the Intel P and E cores that influenced this new naming convention, as well as other efficiencies, in our explainer.

(Photo: Joseph Maldonado)

The upshot? For Intel’s 12th Generation chips, the P series is now the more relevant Intel equivalent to the Ryzen 7 6800U, instead of the U series as you might (reasonably) assume. Like AMD’s 6000 U series, P series will be deployed in more performance-focused thin systems, while Intel’s 12th Generation U series will stick to the portability-first (and likely cheaper) thin laptops. A bit confusing between the two chip makers perhaps, but there you have it—the P series is the real contemporary rival as things stand.

Productivity Tests: Intel Gains a Slight Edge

To kick off testing, we'll turn to the main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's boot drive.

Three further benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

These results are quite positive for the 6800U and the performance that it should be offering. We’ll start with the easy observations first. The G14 and its Ryzen 9 6900HS is obviously the mark to beat, which is no surprise for its category and components.

Next, the 6800U is unsurprisingly a confirmed jump up over the same AMD CPU from the 5000 series, as shown by the Pavilion Aero and the Slim 7 Carbon. The Carbon’s larger chassis, which more room for cooling, might contribute to making its results closer than the Aero’s are, and even edges the Photoshop test, but it’s second best. The 6800U is pretty comfortably superior for these productivity and media tasks.

On a similar point, AMD’s advantage over Intel’s 11th Generation chips remains. The Core i7-1195G7 is not a 1:1 comparison, but it’s similar, and its G family is found in many laptops like the ZenBook S 13 that have launched over the last year.

(Photo: Joseph Maldonado)

Most interestingly, we come to the Yoga and the Core i7-1260P. In various other testing pieces and reviews on laptops and desktops, we’ve written about how Intel’s 12th Generation Alder Lake chips have clawed back (and often surpassed) the gains that AMD’s silicon enjoyed for the past few generations. With the Alder Lake U series chips sticking to lower wattages, this Core i7 P series CPU is the best comparison point for the Ryzen 7 6800U, and the edge is with Intel here.

We’re mostly not talking about big differences, and the 6800U isn’t beaten on every test. The 6800U posts a higher Cinebench score than the i7-1260P, and some tests are closer than others. To its credit, the i7-1260P does attain a clear lead on Geekbench, and is notably quicker on Handbrake (though remember, this is also in a larger 14-inch laptop that likely has better airflow).

Compared to one greatly leading the other across the board, the results above are the type of parity you prefer to see, creating competition and a wide swath of options to consumers. The edge does go to 12th Generation Intel, though, for those keeping track.

Graphics and Gaming Tests Results

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Two more tests from GFXBench 5.0, run offscreen to allow for different display resolutions, wring out OpenGL operations.

This need not be as deep of a dive as the processing performance, since 6000 U series chips won't show up in many gaming laptops, but it’s still good news for AMD! The 6800U is quite clearly the best integrated graphics performer of this bunch, which covers two generations of AMD and Intel chips.

Its superiority is pretty straightforward, resulting in the best graphics horsepower you’ll get in thin systems like these that are not using any type of discrete GPU. On the flip side, you can see how far the gap is to a real GPU—the G14’s Radeon RX 6800S is leaps and bounds ahead. For gaming and any professional 3D work, you’d want a real dedicated GPU like that.

(Photo: Joseph Maldonado)

For more day-to-day tasks and graphics acceleration (or light gaming), the Ryzen 7 6800U is the best of the bunch. Some creative pros can get away with this level of performance, but if you work with media that requires a powerful GPU, this is still not the tier for you.

Ryzen 6000 U Series: Nearly Perfect for Ultraportable Laptops

So that’s the rundown on the Ryzen 6000 U series mobile processors. By and large, the performance falls right where it should, besting older Intel and AMD solutions. It trades some blows with the Intel P Series, which is generally stronger when it comes to productivity tasks, but weaker on the graphics front. Ultimately, you should feel no qualms about opting for the 6000 U series chip family while shopping for an ultraportable laptop this year.