AMD’s Mobile Revival: Redefining the Notebook Business with the Ryzen 9 4900HS (A Review)
by Dr. Ian Cutress on April 9, 2020 9:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmarks
Comparison of these two CPUs is going to be interesting. Both laptops being tested excel in different ways:
| ASUS Zephyrus G14 vs Razer Blade 15 | ||
| ASUS Zephyrus G14 |
AnandTech | Razer Blade 15-inch |
| Ryzen 9 4900HS | CPU | Core i7-9750H |
| 8 / 16 | Cores / Threads | 6 / 12 |
| 1400 MHz | Idle Frequency | 1100 MHz |
| 3000 MHz | Base Frequency | 2600 MHz |
| 4300 MHz | Rated 1T Turbo | 4500 MHz |
| 4500 MHz | Measured 1T Turbo | 4200 MHz |
| 35 W | TDP Listed | 45 W |
| - | TDP Measured | 35 W |
| - | PL2 Listed | 60 W |
| - | PL2 Measured | 45 W |
| 16 GB DDR4-3200 22-22-22 1T |
DRAM | 16 GB DDR4-2666 19-19-19 2T |
The ASUS device has more cores, and by the looks of our testing, actually turbos to a higher frequency, regardless of the sticker on the box. We’ve already shown that AMD’s Zen 2 can have comparable if not better IPC than Intel’s Coffee Lake refresh, so add that to the more cores, should put every test in AMD’s camp.
What should benefit Intel here is the on-box TDP, of 45 W, compared to the AMD 35 W. When we fired up our usual program for monitoring Intel frequencies, it showed that there is a hard coded BIOS boost up to 60 W, which we thought should give some extra power. However, when the system was actually set to a workload, the peak turbo power was only 45 W, which the system was able to keep for 10-15 seconds. Then it sat back at 35 W, which makes it in line with AMD. This is odd performance from the Intel CPU, however we assume at this level that Razer has made the decisions in order to fit within the thermal profile of the Blade 15 chassis.
If Intel has a lower frequency, fewer cores, and a lower frequency, all for the same power envelope as AMD, then it looks like a slam dunk for AMD.
It is. These systems are built with productivity in mind, and even with benchmarks that are bursty like PCMark, AMD takes the win.
I also took some time to run the Civ 6 AI benchmarks, which performs 10 turns of a late game and averages the turn time. Intel won this test, but I performed it again with the power unplugged and on battery saver mode in Windows. The results were reversed:
This led me to do some more tests without power connected. I’ve separated these out into a different page, combining some CPU and some GPU data.
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XabanakFanatik - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
There's something off about the Cinebench R20 scores. The 4900H is scoring around 50% higher than it should and the 9750 is around 35% higher than it should.XabanakFanatik - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
It looks like the scores from the PCMark 10 Creation graph ended up in the CB15 graph as well.XabanakFanatik - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
The new graph showing the 4900HS scoring 2000 points doesn't seem right, either. There's no way the 9750 scored over 4000.T1beriu - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Ian, you might wanna correct the CB R20 graph.ballsystemlord - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
@Ian there's only one CB R20 chart. It doesn't say ST or MT.ballsystemlord - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Its here! Its finally here! An AT AMD 4000 series laptop review!Slash3 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Great article.Any idea if there are 4900U (or 4900HS) models built with LPDDR4X-4266? Would be very interesting to see any gains to the integrated graphics vs the traditional DDR4 subsystem, especially for a 4900U without a separate discrete GPU.
It would also be interesting to know whether an LPDDR4X-4266 platform would feature a 1:1 FCLK of 2133MHz, something well above the current capabilities of desktop Zen 2 chips (typically topping out at 1900MHz).
Lenovo's forthcoming Thinkpad X13 might be another good one to look into, as it should feature both the 4000-series mobile Ryzen as well as Thunderbolt, a feature that seems to be missing on the majority of this current release wave.
neblogai - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
TB was just reported on Notebookcheck to be actually absent in Lenovo Renoir laptops.Slash3 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Well that's pretty disappointing if true. The PDFs in their article link to older T14 variants but it should be pretty easy to get confirmation on the X13 when they end up in people's hands over the next few weeks.Bummer. :(
Fataliity - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
The LPDDR4X-4266 is actually worse than the DDR4 3200. It consumes way less power, but has way higher latency. The 3200 is best for the IGP.