If you are looking for a serious laptop upgrade that’s capable of BOTH productivity and gaming at the same time, there are two processors that come to mind: AMD’s Ryzen 6000 H-series processors and Intel’s 12th Gen Core H-series processors. 

To see which one offers better performance, we compare two gaming laptops that have the same discrete GPU, the same amount of DDR5 RAM, and the same NVMe storage–the only difference being the processor. Which one between AMD Ryzen 6000 H-series and Intel 12th Gen Core H-series offers better overall performance?

Tale of the tape: AMD Ryzen 7-6800H vs. Intel Core i7-12700H

For this comparison test, we have a Legion 5i that uses an Intel Core i7-12700H processor and a TUF Gaming A15 that uses a Ryzen 7-6800H. Both laptops come with an RTX 3060 GPU that has 6GB GDDR6 VRAM, along with 16GB DDR5 RAM.

With both laptops having the same discrete GPU and RAM on board, how does the Core i7-12700H fare against the Ryzen 7-6800H? Are you getting better value for money if you go for the 12th Gen Intel Core H-series-powered laptop or Ryzen 7-6800H?

 

Synthetic Benchmarks

CrossMark measures the overall system performance and system responsiveness using models of real-world applications. The app uses workloads modeled on real applications to accurately gauge common user performance.

Right off the bat, the Intel Core i7-12700H offers a significant lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H, having an overall score that’s higher by 458 points. Breaking down the scores, the Intel Core i7-12700H’s biggest lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H is seen with responsiveness. This means that Intel’s 12th gen Core H-series processors will let you load all of your programs faster than the competition, even if you are opening multiple apps at the same time.

Like Crossmark, PCMark 10 focuses on overall performance, utilizing both the CPU and GPU in handling various tasks from managing data in spreadsheets and taking video calls for meetings, to photo editing and illustration work.

Echoing the results we got from CrossMark, the Intel Core i7-12700H has a sizeable lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H by almost 1800 points. Breaking down the scores, the Intel Core i7-12700H’s biggest advantage is in digital content creation, where its high score in responsiveness in CrossMark also mirrors how efficient Intel’s chip is in rendering heavy multimedia files.

3DMark is a benchmark that we typically use for graphics performance on desktop GPUs and gaming laptops. Both have the proper internals to qualify as gaming laptops, so this tool will let us determine how well they can run games.

With an 1111 lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H, the Intel Core i7-12700H is the runaway winner in 3DMark TimeSpy. A big emphasis on the Intel Core i7-12700H’s lead is with its CPU score, as it commanded a whopping 3,441 point difference versus the CPU score of the Ryzen 7-6800H–and that figure will prove to be important with our findings when it comes to gaming benchmarks.

 

Gaming Benchmarks

With the Intel Core i7-12700H showing a dominant lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H, how does it fare with actual gaming use? For our gaming benchmark tests, we ran DOTA 2, CS: Go, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Cyberpunk 2077 to determine how both laptops handle these games that have varying demands.

FPS games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive demand high FPS rates, as they are important in crucial matches where a fast response time in the battle arena can mean a big win. Running the game in both laptops at 1920×1080 with high graphics, the Intel Core i7-12700H offered a significantly high average FPS than the Ryzen 7-6800H, with a difference of almost 100FPS.

While not as FPS-heavy as FPS games, MOBA games like DOTA 2 balance graphics with FPS for a more enjoyable gaming experience especially with competitive matches. Setting the game at 1920×1080 with best graphics, the Intel Core i7-12700H dominates against the Ryzen 7-6800H in average FPS–all while offering a more stable gaming experience, as evidenced by its 1% low and 0.1% low FPS scores.

While also an FPS game like CS: Go, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is more demanding because the game offers better graphics options. In this case, the Intel Core i7-12700H trailed behind the Ryzen 7-6800H with overall scores–with the game set at 1920×1080 in Ultra graphics and with DLSS on. However, it’s a different story when FPS is measured only with the CPU, as the Intel Core i7-12700H offered better performance than the Ryzen 7-6800H.

Last but not the least, RPG games like Cyberpunk 2077 are one of the most demanding games out there because of the immense, almost real-to-life graphics it offers to gamers. Because of this, the game needs to rely on BOTH the CPU and GPU to deliver a great experience.

Setting the game at 1920×1080, with graphics set to medium and with DLSS on, the Intel Core i7-12700H offers a marginally better experience versus the Ryzen 7-6800H. The 12th Gen Intel Core H-series processor also offers a significantly more stable gaming experience, as it garnered a higher min FPS score compared to the Ryzen 6000 H-series processor.

 

Conclusion: Intel’s 12th Gen H-series processors offer a great upgrade for gaming, content creation, and productivity

With all the tests we made, Intel’s 12th Gen H-series processor is a great upgrade for those who want a laptop that can handle demanding gaming titles very well. In the case of the Intel Core i7-12700H, it posed a dominant lead over the Ryzen 7-6800H despite both laptops having the same discrete GPU and DDR5 RAM capacity.

Aside from having a hybrid architecture that consists of Performance (P-Cores) and Efficiency (E-Cores) cores, the 12th Gen Intel Core H-Series processors have features that will benefit both content creators and gamers. You have support for WiFi 6 and 6e for better internet connectivity, support for DDR5 RAM for faster loading of your favorite games, and support for Thunderbolt 4 and multiple 4K monitors so that you can transform your gaming laptop into a powerful workstation when needed.

The Intel Core i7-12700H’s commanding lead is largely credited to how responsive the processor is when it comes to handling multiple tasks. This also clearly shows that Intel’s hybrid architecture gets the job done more efficiently–with the Intel Core i7-12700H having 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores, along with 20 CPU threads–for handling any tasks thrown at it, be it data-heavy spreadsheets or demanding games.

With our findings in this comparison, we hope that this article will help you decide on choosing a gaming laptop that’s suitable for both your productivity and gaming needs–and offers good value for money too.