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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Slash3 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Yeah, that graph immediately threw a red flag.yeeeeman - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
How about some gaming battery life? Given this is a gaming laptop this is the most interesting scenario.Tams80 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
About what you'd expect from a gaming laptop, so under two hours. And that's not really surprising as it's the GPU that's the main culprit there.haplo602 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
The Intel CPUs boost to 60W when not on battery until they exhaust the thermal headroom. So removing their power cable is the only way to force them into a comparable power envelope.Just check the Civ 6 AI test and compare power from the wall for both ... there'll be a huge difference (even if you count in the GPU power difference).
TheCrazyIvan - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Hanlon’s Razor - X-DHad to look that one up as I am no native speaker and did not know the phrase before - great reference!
The Von Matrices - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
What is the point of having a single DIMM? It doesn't make the laptop any better than having non-upgradable memory because if you do upgrade the module then you have an unbalanced memory configuration. Either make both channels use DIMMs or have soldered down memory.TheCrazyIvan - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Well, there will be a time that DIMMs will have appropriate specs and where e.g. 40GB of total RAM will be in need - no matter the last 24GB being only Single Channel.GreenReaper - Monday, April 20, 2020 - link
Not sure it will ever be the standard, I suspect people will move to DDR5 first.Orkiton - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
There's a typo at last section ;-) S/b "Ryzen mobile 4000: a divine win for amd"ianmills - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
LOL I was wondering about that as "divine wind" means kamikaze. Not quite what AMD is hoping for this line!