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 - Tuesday, April 14, 2020 - link
@Gondalf you are complaining that this is a 6c/12t vs 8c/16t well here is a review of the same laptop with more competition. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asus-rog-zeph... Included in that is an intel 8c/16t and that still loses. The reason for the 6c/12t laptop in this review is they were comparing laptops of similar price. An equivalent laptop with the Intel 8c/16t CPU runs $2650 or $1200 more than this Asus and that $2650 laptop still loses.@deicidium369 your rant about the gaming desktop you basically copied and pasted for a forum on tomshardware https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/amd-big-na... Just because you post the same thing in two places doesn't give you more credibility. Also that laptop review I posted from tomshardware does include an Intel Ice-Lake laptop configured to 25W, guess what it still loses. Right now there aren't any reviews of laptops with the Ryzen 4000U series. Once those come out we will be able to see how they do against competing Ice-Lake laptops. My best guess is that the Intel will still lose and it won't matter the core count. Reason for that is across the board the Ryzens will have better base clock speeds regardless of core count. While there are certain tasks that are bursty on laptops, there are others that aren't and take longer to run. Anything that isn't able to burst and has to rely more on base clock will almost for sure be faster on the AMD. Even the 8c/16t 4800U @15W has a higher base clock than the 1065G7 (top of the stack Ice-Lake) @25W: 1.8GHz vs 1.5GHz, at 15W the Intel is only 1.3GHz. Looking at boost clocks the only Ryzen with a lower boost clock than the top of the line Intel is the Ryzen 3 4300U, the bottom stack chip, 3.9GHz Intel vs 3.7GHz Ryzen. All the other Ryzens boost to at least 4.0GHz.
Korguz - Tuesday, April 14, 2020 - link
i looked at that post on toms, JarredWaltonGPU's post regarding him is awesomeschujj07 - Tuesday, April 14, 2020 - link
It is nice to see Jarred Walton doing reviews again. I remember reading his reviews here on anandtech many years ago.blkspade - Saturday, August 1, 2020 - link
@Gondolf - Your arguing against such a comparison misses all of the important details. The 8 core outperforms a more expensive 6 core, while also being more efficient with those extra cores. Even if an equivalent Intel 8 core offering were between on par or better, performance wise, it would be both dramatically more expensive and less efficient. For the potential consumer, that makes it absolutely fair comparison, and one that matters.Viilutaja - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
Just check out the 8C vs 8C review's at Youtube! Be glad it was not compared againest the best of Intel mobile 8 cores, because most of them AMD won and even against 80W version of Intel 8core cpu... And there is even faster CPU by AMD 4900H which is 45W part not this 35W part in this review.sharath.naik - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
With this, there is no intel product you can buy over AMD. Not in Laptop, not in desktop and not in the server space. Intel is 2 generations behind in performance in all, but in laptops buying an Intel would be a very poor choice, given you have half the performance(I will not count the 5-sec turbo boost that intel gives as legitimate numbers) and poorer battery life.Gondalf - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
Too bad the output of these SKUs will be very low.At the end Intel care nothing of there cpus, they will not affect Intel botton line. Only Intel can supply the OEMs channels. This piece of silicon is an intersting but useless experiment.
No volume no money
FreckledTrout - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
I would have thought the world's largest fab, TSMC, could make as many chips as needed. Silly me.Qasar - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
more lame BS from pro intel gondalfDeicidium369 - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
More lame BS from pro AMD qasar.