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 ESTGPU Benchmarks
Graphics is going to be a bit more challenging than the CPU tests. Games that test both the CPU and the GPU to the limits are going to find different tradeoffs with each of these systems.
The ASUS Zephyrus G14 is smaller and more thermally limited. It doesn’t have an AMD GPU, so it can’t take advantage of AMD’s new features like SmartShift that can manage power between the CPU and GPU. It technically has the stronger CPU, and while the graphics card is the same, ASUS has the Max-Q version of the RTX 2060, which is optimized for power and efficiency, and exhibits lower clocks. Technically the base frequency of this configuration is higher, at 975 MHz, the turbo is lower at 1185 MHz, and the GDDR6 memory is a lot lower at 1375 MHz (11Gbps/pin).
The Razer Blade 15 has the bigger chassis, and we assume is built for a larger overall TDP. While it has the ‘weaker’ CPU of the two, with fewer cores and lower frequency, it is paired with a full-fat GTX 2060 graphics card. We looked at the data for this card, and it exhibits a lower 960 MHz base frequency, it has the higher 1200 MHz turbo, 1750 MHz memory, and has a direct PCIe 3.0 x16 connection with the processor, while the ASUS system is only an x8.
For our tests, I’ve taken an older test (CS:Source), a couple of modern tests (Civ 6, FFXV) and a new test in Borderlands 3. We used the following settings:
- Final Fantasy, 1080p Fullscreen, Standard Quality
- Borderlands 3, 1080p, Medium Pre-Set
- Civilization 6, 1080p Maximum Preset No MSAA / 1K Occlusion Textures
- Civilization 6, 1080p Maximum Preset 8x MSAA / 2K Occlusion Textures
- Counter Strike Source, 1080p Maximum
In Final Fantasy, the results were around 10% different, favoring the AMD system.
Borderlands 3 was actually fairly close, with less than 5% between them, but still favoring AMD. I did notice that we were fairly close to the cutoff here between being CPU limited and GPU limited.
Civilization 6 is well known for constantly updating and being optimized, and here it seems the more powerful GPU wins out by a large 10 FPS margin.
However, if we add in some more compute and detail, we move to a more GPU limited scenario where the results are essentially equal.
Counter Strike is an odd one, given how old the game is. Here the game favors the Intel machine, with a ~10% advantage.
Like in the CPU tests, I did some of these gaming tests with the power cord removed and on battery saver mode. Results were interesting, to say the least, and can be found on the next page.
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schujj07 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
There are USB to Ethernet adapters that can be used.GreenReaper - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
I imagine you won't get the fastest performance, but USB 3.x is a lot better than 2.0 (or wireless), and you can also get 2.5Gbps which you wouldn't get built-in.liquid_c - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
“IT pros” know that you can get just as stable of an internet connection via wireless. Something tells me you’re either a troll or just plain noob. I’d wager both.RSAUser - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Not sure if you're trolling or not, assuming you believe it so, but no, Ethernet is always going to be more stable as less interference which means no chance of signal drops. My laptop is about 40cm from the router, I still use an Ethernet cable as it's more consistent in case my laptop decides the other access point is nicer.At work, no chance I'd consistently work on the WiFi, having over 120 machines connected to that would just destroy the bandwidth (remember, WiFi splits it according to how many devices are connected). Of those 120, around 80 are wired in, get around 15Mbps on WiFi.
Makaveli - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
lmao great troll post liquid_csonny73n - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
“ “IT pros” know that you can get just as stable of an internet connection via wireless. Something tells me you’re either a troll or just plain noob. I’d wager both.”You’re the troll and also a noob here. If you know anything about networking, you wouldn’t be spouting nonsense.
shady28 - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
I work in a multi-billion dollar company's IT department as a developer, 25 years now.It may not be strictly correct to say WiFi is equally as stable as wired, however I do not know a single developer that I work with (out of dozens) who uses their laptop wired for connection stability. 99.9% of the time it is not an issue at all - maybe once a year we see a wireless hiccup from a failing AP. This is in an office that houses thousands of people who almost universally use wireless.
schujj07 - Tuesday, April 14, 2020 - link
Whenever I get a ticket at work from someone complaining about their VPN connection not working, my first question is if they are using WiFi to connect to the internet. When they say yes, I ask them to try connecting over a wired connection. Not once have I had them say it didn't work after that. WiFi might work well for most connections, but it is more prone to signal loss and random latency spikes, and that affects VPNs for sure.hehatemeXX - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Umm.. I doubt you two were going to, as you can easily just buy a usb to ethernet adaptor for a few $$Agent Smith - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Asus put a free LAN dongle in the box