AMD Ryzen 7 H 255: An Old Chip Under a New Name

AMD launched the Ryzen 7 H 255 in 2025, but the silicon inside it is much older than its release date suggests. Behind the new name sits a copy of the Ryzen 7 8845HS from the Hawk Point family, which went into production in early 2024, and in real-world performance the chip doesn't differ from the even older Ryzen 7 7840HS from 2023. There's no NPU at all: AMD either disabled the block in software, or it's shipping dies where the NPU doesn't work reliably.

On paper, this is part of the Ryzen 200 lineup (Hawk Point), meant to be a newer generation replacing the Ryzen 8040 series. In practice, the H 255 turned out to be the cheapest and simplest chip in that lineup. It was originally built for the Chinese market, but it quickly spread worldwide through mini PCs from Beelink, GMK, and Minisforum.

That doesn't make it a bad chip. Eight full Zen 4 cores paired with Radeon 780M graphics still handle the vast majority of everyday and office tasks without trouble. The real question is what these devices actually cost, and whether it's worth paying for a "new" product that's older than its name suggests.

Where It Sits in the Lineup, and the Architecture Behind It

The Ryzen 7 H 255 is built on the same silicon as the Ryzen 7 8845HS and Ryzen 9 8945HS. Eight Zen 4 cores with no hybrid design, 16 threads, 16 MB of L3 cache, Radeon 780M graphics on the RDNA 3 architecture, and a 4nm process node. The chip is soldered directly to the board through an FP8 socket, so there's no upgrading the processor separately.

Within the Ryzen 200 lineup, the H 255 has two close siblings, the Ryzen 7 250 and Ryzen 7 260. All three are eight-core parts with the same Radeon 780M, but the H 255 lacks the Ryzen AI block that the 250 and 260 both have. In clock speeds and power limits, it sits closer to the 45-watt class: 3.8 GHz base, up to 4.9 GHz boost, a configurable TDP of 35 to 54 watts, and some mini PC makers push it as high as 65-70 watts.

But the bigger story is the rebadge. Independent testing from Notebookcheck flatly calls the H 255 a rebadge of the Ryzen 7 8845HS: same core count, same cache, nearly identical performance per watt. Another review compares it to the even older Ryzen 7 7840HS, and the gap there falls within margin of error. This is the third time AMD has sold the same die under a new name, tweaking clock speeds slightly and dropping the NPU.

Performance

Independent benchmarks of two devices, the Beelink SER9 Pro and GMK NucBox K12, put the Ryzen 7 H 255 at:

• Geekbench 6 Single-Core: 2,545-2,546 points
• Geekbench 6 Multi-Core: 12,515-12,825 points
• Cinebench R23 Single-Core: 1,697-1,718 points
• Cinebench R23 Multi-Core: 15,871-16,402 points

The Ryzen 7 8845HS scores almost identically in the same tests: 16,661 points in Cinebench R23 Multi-Core versus an average of 16,137 for the H 255. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, built on Zen 5, beats it by roughly 30-34% in multi-threaded workloads at comparable power draw. That gap shows up clearly in rendering, video encoding, and other tasks that lean on every core at once. Single-threaded work tells a different story. Browsing, office apps, and most games depend on one thread doing the heavy lifting, and there the gap narrows to around 15-20%.

Real-World Results

These are the only two devices with this chip that have independently verified benchmarks. More than a dozen models now ship with the H 255, including the AOOSTAR MACO, Minisforum AI X1-255, Beelink SER9 and SER9 Max, and the Chuwi CoreBook Air. Most manufacturers just publish their own marketing numbers, though, with no third-party testing behind them. The spread between the two verified devices is small, within 2-3%, though the NucBox K12 falls slightly behind in some tests due to a more modest cooling setup and default settings. Both run in the 54-70 watt range under load and throttle noticeably: CPU clocks in a stress test settle around 3.8-3.9 GHz instead of the rated 4.9 GHz boost. That's normal for a mini PC. Peak clocks hold for seconds, not minutes.

Integrated Graphics

The Radeon 780M here is the exact same GPU found in every Hawk Point and Phoenix chip for the past two and a half years: 12 RDNA 3 compute units, clocked up to 2.6 GHz. It scores 3,000-3,400 points in 3DMark Time Spy, roughly 10-15% faster than the older Radeon 680M and about the same margin behind the newer Radeon 890M in Strix Point chips.

In practice, that's enough for games from 2018-2023 at medium settings in 1080p. GTA V at low settings tops 150 frames per second, Dota 2 on ultra holds 80-90, and Baldur's Gate 3 on low settings runs around 40. Cyberpunk 2077 on ultra settings without FSR drops to 13 frames per second, unplayable at that point, but low and medium settings deliver a usable 35-45 frames. Office work, 4K streaming, and everyday use have plenty of headroom here. Current AAA titles at high settings don't, and that won't change, because the graphics silicon hasn't been updated since 2023.

Real Devices, Prices, and Availability

All prices below are in US dollars. Where a manufacturer lists a price in another currency, an approximate conversion follows in parentheses.

• Beelink SER9 Pro (32 GB LPDDR5X, 1 TB SSD) runs around $640-670. The 24 GB version with a smaller SSD sells through Best Buy in the US closer to $600.
• GMK NucBox K12 (32 GB DDR5, 1 TB SSD) costs $520-550, with a barebones version with no RAM or storage starting at $360-410.
• AOOSTAR MACO H255 (a mini PC with OCuLink) sells for $459-499.
• Chuwi CoreBook Air is a rare case of the H 255 landing in a thin, 1 kg laptop with a 2240x1400 display. It sells in Hong Kong for 4,599 HKD (roughly $590 at current exchange rates).
• Slimbook One, a Spanish mini PC that ships with Linux preinstalled, starts at $699 for the 16 GB/500 GB configuration (649-732 euros in Europe, or roughly $700-790). That's noticeably more than comparable Chinese devices with the same specs. You're paying extra for European assembly, warranty support, and a choice of Linux distribution.

The price spread on what's essentially the same platform is enormous: from $360 for a bare NucBox K12 to $700-790 for a Slimbook One with an identical processor and worse memory configuration. That gap has nothing to do with performance. It comes down to brand, build quality, and local support.

Competitors and Alternatives

The Ryzen 7 8845HS and 7840HS are older on paper but deliver the same performance for less money. Mini PCs built around them regularly sell for $50-100 less than comparable H 255 configurations, and there's no real reason to pay extra for the "new" name.

The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is noticeably stronger in graphics thanks to the Radeon 890M and includes a full NPU for local AI workloads. Mini PCs built around it cost $150-250 more. Once your budget clears $800, though, that's a reasonable step up, especially if graphics performance or running AI models locally without the cloud matters to you.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285H and 185H are competitive in multi-threaded performance but fall behind the Radeon 780M in graphics, and they typically show up in pricier mini PCs and premium laptops.

The Ryzen 7 7735HS and 6800H cost noticeably less on the secondhand market than any new device. Their performance trails the H 255 by 15-25%, but under a $300 budget, that's the only realistic option.

Bottom Line

The Ryzen 7 H 255 isn't a bad chip on its own. Eight Zen 4 cores and Radeon 780M graphics handle office work, light video editing, streaming, and games at low settings without issue. But AMD is selling a die that's now two to three years old under a new name, and it's missing the NPU that comes on other chips in the same lineup.

A device with the H 255 is worth buying only if it's clearly cheaper than an equivalent Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 machine, by $150-250 with similar memory and storage. The GMK NucBox K12 at $520-550, or its barebones version starting at $360, is a fair price for a platform at this level. Paying extra for build quality and brand makes sense up to about $100-150 above the price of a comparable mini PC with the same chip. Past that point, you're no longer paying for the hardware. You're paying for the box it comes in.