The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 Showdown: AMD's Ryzen Picasso vs. Intel's Ice Lake
by Brett Howse & Andrei Frumusanu on December 13, 2019 8:30 AM ESTBenchmark Analysis: Boost Behavior
Let’s dig into some of the testing to see how the systems responded during the benchmarks. We re-ran several of the tests while simultaneously monitoring the processor frequency, temperature, and power. Unfortunately for our comparison, the power polling results provided by our monitoring tools don’t seem to monitor the same power draw. The Intel power numbers are for the SoC package, but the AMD power numbers appear to be just the CPU cores, which is an unfortunate byproduct of testing two different platforms.
PCMark 10
PCMark 10 is a benchmark platform that attempts to simulate real-world tasks by running a variety of workflow, and the results were perhaps the most interesting of any of the benchmarks. There is a major discrepancy in how the AMD CPU behaved compared to the Intel. The Ice Lake platform kept the CPU frequency at a minimum of 3.5 GHz, with bursts to 3.9 GHz when under load. The Picasso processor was very aggressively switching from low frequency to high frequency, and was rarely indicating that it was over 3.0 GHz, but clearly demonstrating its higher peak frequency of 4.0 GHz in several locations. Both systems were fairly even in terms of CPU temperature, and Intel’s aggressive turbo levels were evident with peak power levels of 40 Watts for brief moments. The Ice Lake platform finished the benchmark about 200 seconds quicker than the Picasso system.
Cinebench R20 Single-Thread
We see somewhat similar results when only a single CPU core is loaded with the Picasso CPU frequency varying quite a bit. There’s also an average higher temperature on the AMD platform during this workload, and once again Ice Lake finishes the rendering quite a bit sooner thanks to its stronger CPU cores.
Cinebench R20 Multi-Thread
With all cores loaded the graph is considerably altered. Here the AMD processor is able to maintain a much higher frequency across its cores for much longer, while Intel's chip is only able to maintain 3.5 GHz for about 30 seconds before it runs out of headroom, dropping the cores down to around 2.6 GHz. But despite the lower frequency, the much higher IPC on Sunny Cove allows the Ice Lake platform to finish quite a bit sooner.
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yannigr2 - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Nice. Let's run the single threaded SPEC2017 test to show how good Intel is against the new star, the Ryzen 9 3950.Let's run the multi threaded SPEC2017 test WITHOUT the desktop CPUs to avoid showing how bad Intel is against the Ryzen 9 3950.
yannigr2 - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Thats way we can title both results as "Intel having an advantage"Where is the good old Anandtech?
Brett Howse - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
The comparison is 15W AMD to 15W Intel in the same laptop. Please refer to the title of the article.yannigr2 - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
Then why are there results from desktop processors ESPECIALLY on the SINGLE threaded performance, but no results on the multi threaded performance?Maybe to advertise the single threaded performance that Ice Lake offers, compared to Zen 2? Maybe because 16 Zen 2 cores obliterate Intel chips on multithreaded tests?
The fact that you avoid in the article to explain why you only post single threaded, but no multithreaded results from desktop processors explains much. Hides nothing.
One "Tom's Hardware" is enough. We don't need another.
Brett Howse - Sunday, December 15, 2019 - link
Because it's relevant on single-threaded but irrelevant on multi-threaded. If you're after desktop CPU reviews we have those as well. If we were going to run SPEC multi-thread on a desktop CPU we'd not be running it at Rate 8. Rate 8 was run on these two processors because they have 8 threads.Maxiking - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Lol, amd trash brigading again.Haawser - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
I think 7nm Ryzen mobile will be a lot more competitive than Picasso. Which is 'ok' for a last generation 12nm effort, but unlikely to hold a candle to a 7nm Zen2 APU. So next year should be a really interesting one as far as notebooks are concerned.Cliff34 - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Looking at the price, spec and performance, Intel is still the winner in the laptop areana. Why would anyone save 100 dollars for a laptop that is win home, slower and less battery life?eastcoast_pete - Saturday, December 14, 2019 - link
Two additional comments:1. The Ryzen version is overpriced; as is, it would still be an attractive option if the price would be $300 or so less. Right now, the value proposition is on the side of the Ice Lake i7 version.
2. Many comments here complain about how this comparison is unfair to AMD's APU. Why not complain about AMD not shipping a mobile APU based on Zen2 in 7 nm, preferably with Navi graphics on board, more L3 cache, and LPDDR4 support? Isn't that the likely reason for Ice Lake taking the cake here, and trouncing AMD?
As is, I view the current Ryzen mobile APUs as good choices for mid-level machines suitable for occasional e-sports gaming, not for running a premium ultraportable $ 2000+ laptop.
MBarton - Monday, December 30, 2019 - link
"2. Many comments here complain about how this comparison is unfair to AMD's APU. Why not complain about AMD not shipping a mobile APU based on Zen2 in 7 nm, preferably with Navi graphics on board, more L3 cache, and LPDDR4 support? Isn't that the likely reason for Ice Lake taking the cake here, and trouncing AMD?"Because all Zen 2 production is being channeled into HIGH profit server and HEDT CPU sales. While Intel fans get a moral victory in the Surface 3 review, their 10nm CPU parts are making Intel very little money using a process node they have burned billions trying to get working. AMD doesn't have the convenience of diverting valuable 7nm parts to low margin mobile sales. Congrats to Intel, they've won a much needed but very hollow victory.