AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 250 vs AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 230

AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 250

The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 250 is a powerful laptop processor (APU) of the now years-old Hawk Point family that was announced at CES 2025. This isn't an entirely new APU; instead, the R7 250 is a rebadged R7 8840U. Its eight Zen 4 cores run at 3.3 GHz to 5.1 GHz and are SMT-enabled for a total of 16 processing threads. The Radeon 780M iGPU is responsible for 3D processing and similar duties. Compared to the consumer Ryzen 7 250, the PRO model offers additional security, manageability, and reliability features designed for professional users and workstation environments, such as Secure Processor (an ARM security co-processor).

Architecture and Features

Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips were. The 16 TOPS NPU present here isn't powerful enough for systems built around the PRO 250 to be Copilot+ certified.

Elsewhere, the chip has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM while also being compatible with USB 4 and thus with Thunderbolt. It comes with 20 PCIe 4 lanes, giving fast NVMe SSD up to 7.8 GB/s of throughput.

Please note that this processor is not overclockable and neither is it user-replaceable. It gets soldered to the motherboard for good instead (FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

Since the R7 PRO 250 is an 8840U / 7840U (PRO) in disguise, we expect its multi-thread performance to be close to that of the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V which, as of 2025, is good enough even for demanding tasks.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Graphics

The Radeon 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) purring away at up to 2,700 MHz. The Radeon will let you use up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p and it will also HW-decode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs (such as AV1, HEVC and AVC) without breaking a sweat. As for gaming, most 2024 games run fine at 1080p with settings set to Low on this graphics adapter.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of your system is, how fast the RAM of your system is (there is no dedicated VRAM here).

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W. Laptop makers are free to change that value significantly, with values as low as 15 W or as high as 30 W greenlighted by AMD. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by this chip.

The R7 PRO 250 is built with TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.

AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 230

The Ryzen 5 PRO 230 (or R5 PRO 230) is a Hawk Point family processor that was unveiled in early 2025. This is not a new chip; instead, it's a rebadged Ryzen 5 8640U and Ryzen 5 7640U with higher clock speeds on the Ryzen AI NPU. Just like the older chips, the R5 230 has 6 SMT-enabled cores (12 threads) running at 3.5 GHz to 4.9 GHz. Those Zen 4 architecture cores are mated to the Radeon 760M integrated graphics adapter. Compared to the consumer Ryzen 5 230, the PRO model offers additional security, manageability, and reliability features designed for professional users and workstation environments, such as Secure Processor (an ARM security co-processor).

Architecture & Features

Hawk Point family chips are powered by the Zen 4 architecture, much like Phoenix and Dragon Range family chips are. That's not to say there is no difference between the three. With Hawk Point, AMD is betting big on generative AI; these chips are said to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs making apps like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop even more powerful.

Unlike Zen 3, Zen 4 features AVX512 support and, thanks to a plethora of other improvements including larger caches/registers/buffers, is slated to bring a double-digit IPC improvement over the former.

Elsewhere, the R5 PRO 230 has 16 MB of L3 cache and USB 4 support (therefore, Thunderbolt is supported as well). The chip is compatible with DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM which is still impressive as of H2 2023.

A system powered by this Ryzen 5 will have access to twenty PCIe 4 lanes; this means a speedy enough NVMe SSD will be able to deliver speeds up to 7.8 GB/s.

Systems powered by this APU are expected to run 64-bit Windows 11, 64-bit Windows 10, or Linux. Like most laptop chips, the Ryzen 5 230 is neither overclockable nor user-replaceable. It gets soldered down for good (FP7, FP7r2, FP8 socket interfaces).

Performance

The CPU performance is the same as the older Ryzen 5 8640U and Ryzen 5 7640U due to the same specifications. That means the performance is in the mid range of laptop chips and still well suited for even demanding tasks.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your laptop is.

Graphics

The Radeon 760M has 8 CUs (512 shaders) running at up to 2,600 MHz. This iGPU will happily drive up to 4 monitors with resolutions as high as SUHD 4320p and it also will HW-decode and HW-encode AV1, HEVC, AVC without breaking a sweat. VP9 videos can be decoded but not encoded. As far as gaming is concerned, the average 760M in our database is reasonably close to the GeForce MX550 and the Radeon 680M. In early 2024, this means the latest games can only be played at 1600x900 with most settings set to Low.

Power consumption

The R5 PRO 230 has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W that laptop makers are free to change to anything between 15 W and 30 W. Either way, an active cooling solution is a must for any system powered by the chip.

Last but not the least, the R5 PRO 230 is manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.