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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neblogai - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Yes, it is probably not too bad performance wise- U-series set to 25W + LPDDR4X. But, I understand, it is in the upper price range, so I'll wait to see the overclocking results of ~200g lighter and ~€200 cheaper Swift 3, which might fit my needs better.twotwotwo - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Similar--I would also love 13-14" + all the CPU + enough battery. Minimal graphics is fine and I can't use a high refresh rate. Wouldn't mind a better-than-1080p screen, but that's icing. And I like the matte screen, user-upgradeability, and good keyboard here. (So, like, move a little towards the MacBook Pro kind of market but not too far.)Think I read they didn't expect anyone to build with a 4900H(S) and no dGPU. If that's how it is, it'd still be cool to see a small laptop that cheaps out on the dGPU/refresh rate but not on everything else, for those of us that aren't hardcore gamers. Maybe an AMD dGPU? Their stuff to shift power budget between CPU and GPU seems neat.
lightningz71 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
I like what you're putting down, but, I want the following:No dGPU
R9-4900H with generous cooling
two SODImm sockets
1 X 2.5 inch SATA bay
1 X NVME M.2 slot
15inch form factor
1440p screen with freesync (High res for productivity, 720p RIS upscaling from the iGPU for gaming)
95watt battery
That would be everything that I need in a laptop. I'm not looking for bleeding edge gaming, but, I do like having a lot of screen pixel area when I need to do something useful.
eva02langley - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
Waiting for something similar, however in an slim ultrabook factor.Zingam - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
USB4, HDMI 2.1, more PCI lanes, PCI 4.0, AV1 4K encoding, decoding, etc. insignificant stuff...Zingam - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
RJ45u600213 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
I almost ordered an ASUS Zephyrus G14 but no webcam so no go.quantumshadow44 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
lack of RJ45 is also no goDahak - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Yep same, I could go without a webcam. But lack of RJ45 is a big no no for me. For home users or mobile pros, its probably fine but as an IT pro, I need ethernet.philehidiot - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
I'm no IT pro, I'm a garden variety nerd and I have to say I need at least one laptop in the house with an RJ45. I have two laptops in the house, one being a Macbook Air (2011, now obsolete) which has no RJ45 and it means I have to use the Missus's laptop for any network diagnostics where I need to connect directly to the router. I see RJ45s as kind of like an optical drive for most people. You can get away without one, but they're damned useful to have around. My Macbook will be moving to Linux shortly for the rest of its life and I recently popped an SSD into the Wife's ageing laptop which turned it from unusable to awesome. I expect they'll both need replacing at a similar time and when that time comes, part of the buying decision will be ensuring one of the machines has an RJ45 on it or we buy an adaptor for when it's required.