AMD Ryzen Z2 vs AMD Ryzen 5 230

AMD Ryzen Z2

The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is a powerful handheld processor (APU) of the Hawk Point family. It is based on the old Ryzen 7 7840U / 8840U but without the Ryzen AI engine. 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. 

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 promised to deliver an up to 40% increase in generative AI performance over 7040 series APUs making apps like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Photoshop more powerful than ever before.

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

Elsewhere, the 8840U has 16 MB of L3 cache and support for super-fast DDR5-5600 and LPDDR5x-7500 RAM. The chip is 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.

Performance

Since the Z2 Extreme is a 8840U / 7840U in disguise, it's safe to expect it to be about as fast as the Core i7-12650H, as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. 

Graphics

The Radeon 780M has 12 CUs (768 shaders) at a currently not known clock frequency (most likely reduced compared to the Ryzen 7). 

Power consumption

This Ryzen 7 series chip has a long-term power limit (default TDP) of 28 W (configurable from 15 - 30 Watt). 

The Z2 Extreme is built with TSMC's 4 nm process..

AMD Ryzen 5 230

The Ryzen 5 230 (or R5 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.

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 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 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 230 is manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process for high, as of late 2023, energy efficiency.