Home > CPU Comparison > Core i3 1215U or Ryzen 5 3500U: what's better?

Intel Core i3 1215U vs AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

42 out of 100
Intel Core i3 1215U
VS
27 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
Intel Core i3 1215U
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

We compared two laptop CPUs: the 1.2 GHz Intel Core i3 1215U with 6-cores against the 2.1 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with 4-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
Integrated Graphics
iGPU capabilities for gaming and 3D-intensive tasks
NanoReview Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
πŸ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 3500U and 1215U
Advantages of Intel Core i3 1215U
  • Has 6 MB larger L3 cache size, helping fully utilize a high-end GPU in gaming
  • 2.1x faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 2184 vs 1044 points
  • Supports up to 64 GB DDR5-4800 RAM
  • Newer - released 3 years and 2 months later
  • Has 2 more physical cores
  • Newer PCI Express version – 4.0
  • More modern manufacturing process – 10 versus 12 nanometers
  • 19% higher Turbo Boost frequency (4.4 GHz vs 3.7 GHz)

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i3 1215U
vs
Ryzen 5 3500U

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Core i3 1215U +109%
2184
Ryzen 5 3500U
1044
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i3 1215U +97%
5662
Ryzen 5 3500U
2880
File compression 356.7 MB/sec 310.7 MB/sec
Clang compilation 45.1 Klines/sec 19.2 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 117.1 pages/sec 71.5 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 180.5 Mpixels/sec 92 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 224.7 pages/sec 88.3 pages/sec
Background blur 18.9 images/sec 11.3 images/sec
Photo processing 54.2 images/sec 28 images/sec
Ray tracing 9.45 Mpixels/sec 4.41 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] – 1106 & 774 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i3 1215U +62%
3101
Ryzen 5 3500U
1911
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i3 1215U +48%
10106
Ryzen 5 3500U
6809
Integer math 34.4 GOps/sec 24.5 GOps/sec
Floating point math 24.6 GOps/sec 12.4 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 30M Primes/sec 15M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 12.7M Strings/sec 10.9M Strings/sec
Data encryption 6.8 GBytes/sec 5.9 GBytes/sec
Data compression 113.1 MBytes/sec 93.6 MBytes/sec
Physics 546 Frames/sec 367 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 6.7B Matrices/sec 3.5B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] – 3915 & 5693 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i3 1215U +73%
58.9
Ryzen 5 3500U
34.13

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 18.9 PPW 4.3 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 377.5 PPW 82.3 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 673.7 PPW 194.5 PPW
Blender / Watt 3.93 PPW 0.98 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Intel Core i3 1215U
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2025-04-11 (Shanmukh)GeekBench2126 / 6248
πŸ“˜ 2023-11-06 (goryn81)Cinebench 202489 / 283
Add View all (2)
AMD Ryzen 5 3500U
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2025-02-25 (Kirill_009)GeekBench643 / 1815
Add View all (1)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i3 1215U and AMD Ryzen 5 3500U

General

Vendor Intel Amd
Released February 23, 2022 January 6, 2019
Type Laptop Laptop
Instruction Set x86-64 x86-64
Codename Alder Lake Zen+ (Picasso)
Model number i3-1215U -
Integrated GPU UHD Graphics (64EU) Radeon Vega 8
Rival Equivalent - - Intel Core i5 1035G7
Successor - Intel Core 3 100U - AMD Ryzen 5 8640U
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#187th place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 2 4
P-Threads 4 8
Base Frequency (P) 1.2 GHz 2.1 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 4.4 GHz 3.7 GHz
Efficient Cores
E-Cores 4 -
E-Threads 4 -
Base Frequency (E) 0.9 GHz -
Turbo Boost Frequency (E) 3.3 GHz -
Total
Total Cores 6 4
Total Threads 8 8
Bus Frequency 100 MHz 100 MHz
Multiplier 12x 21x
L1 Cache 80K (per core) 96K (per core)
L2 Cache 1280K (per core) 512K (per core)
L3 Cache 10MB (shared) 4MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier No No

Package

Transistors - 4.9 billions
Fabrication Process 10 nm 12 nm
TDP (PL1) 12-15 W (configurable) 12-35 W (configurable)
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) 55 W -
Socket BGA-1744 FP5
Peak Temperature 100Β°C 105Β°C

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics (64EU) Radeon Vega 8
GPU Base Clock 300 MHz 300 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1100 MHz 1200 MHz
Shading Units 512 512
TMUs 32 32
ROPs 16 8
Execution Units 64 8
TGP 15 W 25 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i3 1215U
1.1 TFLOPS
Ryzen 5 3500U +9%
1.2 TFLOPS
More info: Radeon RX Vega 8 compared to UHD Graphics (64 EU)

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR5-4800
- DDR4-3200
- LPDDR5-5200
- LPDDR4x-4267		 - DDR4-2400
Max. Memory Size 64 GB 32 GB
Memory Channels 2 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth - 35.76 GB/s
ECC Support No Yes

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i3 1215U official page AMD Ryzen 5 3500U official page
PCI Express Version 4.0 3.0
PCI Express Lanes 20 12

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
122 (80.8%)
29 (19.2%)
Total votes: 151

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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U or Intel Core i3 1215U?
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