AMD Ryzen 7 8745H VS Intel Core 5 120

The most consequential difference in this group is process node: the Ryzen 7 8745H is built on a cutting-edge 4 nm process, while the Core 5 120 uses a comparatively dated 10 nm node. A smaller process node generally means more transistors per mm², better power efficiency, and improved thermal headroom — all else being equal. This gap is substantial and directly explains the equally large gap in TDP: the Ryzen 7 8745H is rated at 45W versus the Core 5 120's 65W. The Intel chip demands 44% more power at the wall, which translates to more heat output and higher cooling requirements in a desktop build.

Where the Core 5 120 recovers some ground is in platform connectivity: it supports PCIe 5, one full generation ahead of the Ryzen's PCIe 4. This matters if you plan to pair the chip with a next-gen NVMe SSD or a GPU that can saturate PCIe 5 bandwidth — though in most real-world workloads today, PCIe 4 remains largely sufficient. Both CPUs share integrated graphics and full 64-bit support, so those are non-differentiating factors here.

Overall, the Ryzen 7 8745H holds a clear architectural efficiency edge in this group — its modern process node keeps power draw low and extends its use to both laptop and desktop platforms. The Core 5 120's advantage is its PCIe 5 support, which offers more future-facing I/O headroom, but that comes at the cost of a significantly higher thermal and power envelope.

Raw compute throughput strongly favors the Ryzen 7 8745H. With 8 cores and 16 threads running at a 3.8 GHz base clock and boosting to 4.9 GHz, it outguns the Core 5 120's 6 cores / 12 threads at a much lower 2.5 GHz base. That 1.3 GHz base clock gap is significant in sustained workloads — tasks like video rendering, compilation, or data processing that can't always rely on turbo headroom will see the Ryzen maintain a higher sustained throughput. The turbo advantage is also real: 4.9 GHz vs 4.5 GHz means the Ryzen reaches higher peaks in single-threaded bursts as well.

The cache picture is more nuanced. The Core 5 120 counters with a larger L3 cache per core — 3 MB/core against the Ryzen's 2 MB/core — and a slightly higher L2 per core too. More cache per core reduces the penalty of cache misses in latency-sensitive, single-threaded workloads like gaming or certain enterprise applications. The Ryzen's total L3 is 16 MB versus Intel's 18 MB, so while Intel has an edge in per-core cache density, the overall pool isn't drastically larger. Neither chip uses big.LITTLE heterogeneous core designs, so both deliver uniform core performance without scheduling complexity.

On balance, the Ryzen 7 8745H holds a clear performance edge in this group. Its core count, thread count, and clock speed advantages dominate for the majority of multi-threaded and general workloads. The Core 5 120's per-core cache lead offers a modest benefit in cache-sensitive scenarios, but it is not enough to close the gap in overall compute muscle.

This is one of the most lopsided matchups in the entire comparison. The Radeon 780M in the Ryzen 7 8745H operates at a completely different scale than Intel's UHD Graphics 730. With 768 shading units versus just 192, the AMD iGPU has four times the shader count — and that ratio holds almost perfectly across TMUs (48 vs 12) and ROPs (32 vs 8) as well. These units are the core engines of GPU rendering, so this isn't a marginal gap: it represents a fundamentally different class of integrated graphics.

Clock speeds reinforce the divide. The Radeon 780M boosts to 2600 MHz at its peak, compared to the UHD 730's ceiling of 1500 MHz. Combined with the shader count advantage, the Ryzen's iGPU is capable of handling light gaming, 3D workloads, and GPU-accelerated creative tasks at levels the UHD 730 simply cannot approach. For users who want to game without a discrete GPU — even at modest settings — this difference is decisive. The Intel option is better understood as a display-output and video-decode solution rather than a capable graphics processor.

On shared features, both support DirectX 12 and up to 4 displays, and the OpenCL difference (3.0 on Intel vs 2.1 on AMD) is the one area where Intel technically holds a spec advantage — but given the UHD 730's far lower compute resources, higher OpenCL version alone does not translate to better compute performance. The Ryzen 7 8745H wins this group decisively and without qualification.

Both chips operate on DDR5 memory with dual-channel controllers, so the generational platform is identical. The meaningful split is in maximum supported RAM speed: the Ryzen 7 8745H reaches up to 7500 MHz, while the Core 5 120 tops out at 4800 MHz. That 56% bandwidth ceiling gap matters most in workloads that are memory-throughput sensitive — the Radeon 780M integrated graphics being a prime example, since iGPUs draw directly from system RAM and scale noticeably with faster memory speeds. Faster RAM also benefits tasks like large dataset processing, in-memory databases, and certain creative workloads.

Maximum capacity also tilts AMD's way: 256 GB versus 192 GB. For most users this is academic, but for memory-intensive professional use cases — virtualization, large-scale simulation, or workstation-grade workloads — the extra headroom is a tangible advantage. Neither chip supports ECC memory, so both are equally unsuited for environments that require error-correcting RAM, such as servers or mission-critical systems.

The Ryzen 7 8745H holds a clear edge in this group. Its higher memory speed ceiling and greater maximum capacity give it more headroom in both everyday and demanding scenarios, with the RAM speed gap being especially consequential given the Ryzen's capable integrated GPU, which directly benefits from faster system memory.

Across every data point in this group, the Ryzen 7 8745H and Core 5 120 are in complete lockstep. Both support the same instruction set extensions — including AVX2, FMA3, AES, and SSE 4.2 — both implement multithreading, and both carry the NX bit for hardware-level memory protection against malicious code execution.

The shared instruction set suite is worth contextualizing: AVX2 enables wide vectorized math operations critical for scientific computing, video encoding, and AI inference workloads, while AES hardware acceleration ensures cryptographic operations like disk encryption and secure communications run efficiently without taxing the general compute pipeline. Any software optimized for these extensions will behave identically in terms of compatibility on either chip.

This group is a straightforward tie. There is no feature here that distinguishes one chip from the other, and neither platform offers a meaningful advantage from a software compatibility or security instruction standpoint. Users should look to the other spec groups — performance, memory, and integrated graphics in particular — to inform their decision.