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 - 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.