Who Controls the User Experience? AMD’s Carrizo Thoroughly Tested
by Ian Cutress on February 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTThe ‘Who Wants AMD In A Laptop?’ Problem
AnandTech readers and editors have both recognized the concerns that OEMs have when using AMD products. Disregarding specific details of support provided to the device manufacturers, few of them feel the need to develop high end designs around AMD silicon due to both previously poor performance and equally poor end-user sentiment. Unfortunately for AMD, this is a somewhat deep pit to dig themselves out of, and their situation isn't helped by now skeptical OEMs. As a result, even when AMD has new designs ready for release, prominent users and OEMs alike remain reserved until independent or internal confirmation of AMD's latest claims. While the major OEMs, such as Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS will happily produce several models to fill the gap and maintain relationships with AMD, none of them will actively market a high-profile AMD based device due to the scope of previous AMD silicon and public expectation. If a mid-to-high end device is put in play, numbers are limited, distribution is narrow and advertising is minimal.
This was perhaps most poignant when discussing Carrizo with other media at the recent Tech Day. Other media expressed concern about the low number of laptops with AMD’s processors, noting that they are few and far between. One website owner even mentioned, anecdotally, that in his forum there is a specific section dedicated to AMD notebook owners or to-be-owners, where they track the latest models and attempt to find where it is in stock. As a result, when the members of that forum were looking for certain devices, they would have to collaborate to purchase and ship them across regional boundaries due to the limited distribution or merely the lack of access, even in North America and Europe.
Meanwhile recent comments about Carrizo from our own readers was quite telling - some associate AMD with bargain basement devices, often fitted with low grade panels at low resolutions/poor color reproducibility or poor industrial design that fails within a couple of years of use due to thermal cycling, battery degradation or device design concerns. This condemnation of previous devices was somewhat universal, to the point where individual end users are noting how few OEMs are even taking up the mantle with AMD products. Searching in a brick and mortar shop shows a similar story - for every 10 or 20 Intel machines, they may only be a single AMD model, and that the model is a low-end budget laptop.
Despite this, OEMs should take care when deciding their future design profile. One comment from the launch of Carrizo was particularly telling - 'I would buy a Dell XPS13-esque machine with this', where the XPS13 is a halo OEM design for Intel’s Broadwell platform that received excellent reviews both for design and aesthetics. The comments on the news of Carrizo, after filtering the obvious fans of both Intel and AMD, were positive based on the information provided by AMD. However a small set of users is never sufficient to trigger OEM interest, especially when the comments of those users are based on unverified performance claims and the lack of independent testing. When an OEM looks into creating a halo type device such as the XPS13, they are reliant on both the processor manufacturer in providing an ample supply of chips with the performance they need, as well as the client market's interest in such a platform at a given price.
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alexruiz - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Ian,What specific model of the Elitebook 745 G3 did you test?
You listed the QHD screen (2560 x 1440 IPS) but you also wrote that it came in at just under $700. Is this correct? The one that you received for $700 included the QHD screen?
Thanks
Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
The link on the page goes to the T3L35UT#ABA, which is a 1080p screen. I'm guessing the spreadsheet and/or pricing is incorrect somehow.Ian Cutress - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I remember being told it was 700, though I may have misheard and perhaps they were speaking GBP. But AB is right, the larger screen is 1080p and more expensive.The HP website is surprising though - the UX on the website is crazy to find a product that isn't the latest and greatest. It is very difficult to find anything and you seem to pay a premium for speccing out a custom Elitebook. Trying to spec out the one I was given came to $1900 from a $1620 base, which clearly isn't right because the high end 'buy now' model was about $1120 with similar specifications.
http://goo.gl/5spQls
Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
GBP certainly makes a lot more sense. The base USD$750 model on HP's site has an A8-8600B, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. If you want to find a Carrizo system with an "awful user experience" there it is.Custom-building an HP business system from their site is also expensive for no reason other than "because we said so." They really want you to buy the mass-manufactured SmartBuy models, although you may have better luck with a custom unit (read: "reasonable pricing") if you buy from a 3rd-party reseller.
I would like to see some GPU benchmarks with a second stick of RAM added to the 745 G3 though. Single-channel memory gives integrated graphics the Tonya Harding treatment.
Intel999 - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
Another review of Carrizo in the HP 745 G3 showed a 30% improvement in gaming when the second stick of RAM was installed. It went from woefully behind Intel to just ahead of them after sufficient RAM was provided.It is remarkable that any OEM would damage their own reputation by putting out crap that is obviously intended to funnel sales to Intel.
Imagine an OEM putting out a model, let's call it HP100, and offering it with identical specs with the only difference being a Carrizo CPU vs. an I5 from Intel. Few if any, would notice a difference in performance in the real world, not talking benchmarks.
The OEM would have a $100 savings on the Carrizo version if not more. If they were to sell it for $50 less than the Intel version they would sell more and that extra $50 profit on the AMD machine would more than offset the "rebates" they are getting from Intel. So they could have a higher profit margin at a lower price point. Afterall, with all the Intel marketing you'd still have plenty of people opting for the Intel version with it's lower profit margin. Just not as many and overtime you could approach Intel and point out that you make more money off AMD machines and who knows, maybe for the first time in recent history the OEM would control how their company is run and Intel would say "I guess we can cut our price by $25" and then you would be making the same profit on both Intel and AMD machines since, of course, the OEM wouldn't pass that $25 to the customer.
They could still offer junk machines at lower price points. Fill em up with Celerons or whatever they wanted attached to HDDs, 4GB of RAM, and crap screens.
Surely, no OEM is still following the old Intel rebate plan that allowed Intel to determine the market share that the OEM is allowed to give AMD. Or, are they?
Lolimaster - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I hate HP store with all my might, back in the day I got better experience donwloading from japanese p2p's not knowing japanese and just using a simple guide.keeepcool - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Please, just dont let Toshiba make laptops, just DON'T.Sorry for the word, but Toshiba is a shit brand that deserves to die. All their laptops have cooling solutions that are badly designed from the start, and the they cut all the corners and go for paper thin 4mm heatpipes on top of deformed and pitted 1.5mm cooper plates that make poor contact with the dies, the fans are thin, the thermal paste is worse than toothpaste, just stop allowing them to disgrace AMD name.
HP is also guilty of this, after the disgrace that where the dv6 models almost no one in Portugal and a lot other countries ever want a laptop with AMD cpu or gpu, because DV6's are just know for being litteral toasters that crash and burned, yes part of that was due to lack of maintenance, but still, it left a very sour taste regard AMD/ATI equiped laptops.
Today only people with low monetary margins will go for an AMD laptop, because they are the cheapest ones, and even then HP and Toshibas just manage to make toasters out of 7 and 15Watts TDP, its like they actually spend time engineering them to became so hot with so little TDP's...
tipoo - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
50.27 Wh, 3 cell Li-Po design, rated to 10.25 hours. Out of a 3.3GHz AMD APU.You know, HP, somehow, I don't believe you.
bluevaping - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Nice article. And I get the point of the article about OEM's and AMD. I mostly agree with Shadowmaster 625. But it would have been nice to see a dual channel memory test. The Elitebook supports it. Slap in the extra ram and test it. And try dual channel 1866 Ram too.tipoo - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Shame the Lenovo doesn't support dual graphics - any reason why, or will this be updated in drivers? Especially as the integrated one has the same number of SPs as the dedicated, it could add a lot to the power equation.