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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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