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 ESTLow Power Performance
Truth be told, I didn’t go into this review with low power testing in mind. These sorts of laptops, while capable of driving high performance on the go, are essentially expected to be connected to the power socket when performance is needed. Even the best ultraportables struggle for battery life when everything is whirring at full tilt. Nonetheless, after my own experiences of 3 hours of gaming on power with a Matebook X Pro and a high screen brightness, it is a genuine use case.
For these tests, the settings and software are the same as normal, but the only change is that the power cable has been removed and the power setting in Windows has been moved to ‘Best Battery Life’. We’re still in the Recommended Power Plan and not the Battery Saver Plan. What this does is force the OS and system to manage its power appropriately between CPU and GPU. In these circumstances being able to distribute the power where it is needed most can be a very critical factor in getting a project finished, or having a game that is playable.
Our tests here, due to time, are the following:
- Civilization 6, 1080p MSAA 8x, AI Test (On Battery, Battery Saver)
- Borderlands 3, 1080p Medium (On Battery, Battery Saver)
- Counter Strike Source, 1080p Max (On Battery, Battery Saver)
So previously Intel had a very slight advantage in AI turn time here, but as we move to a power limited scenario, AMD takes a more substantial lead – over 10%.
Where we had a small 5% win for AMD in the full power scenario, the gap is a bit bigger percentage wise for AMD in the low power scenario. It is still under 30 FPS, which is probably unplayable for BL3.
Now CSS is a little odd. When I’m in Battery Saver mode but plugged in, I get the full power FPS value. But the minute I take it out, on the Razer Blade, something goes a bit mental and we end up being limited to 60 FPS. V-Sync is disabled in every setting I think of, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a way of getting off of 60 FPS.
Ultimately in every scenario, in a few small tests, where Intel might have been ahead on wall power, AMD pulls ahead on limited power.
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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.