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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Gondalf - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
I find crazy to compare an 8 core Laptop to a 6 core one.Intel is plenty of 45W 8 cores SKUs for laptops with turbos at over 5Ghz, and we are here to show nothing.
So basically AMD can only compete with a 6 core Coffee lake???
Irata - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
There are reviews that show the eight core can‘t keep up either or just barely and that is in a huge and heavy chassis (i.e. the portable desktop type). And their battery life is even worse, as is their power consumption.Oh, and looking at this review, the six core is coupled with a faster RTX 2060 GPU...
Idontknowhatosay - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Der8auer did a comparison against the 9980HK and the 4900HS still came on top in performance. It even manages to keep up with the 5 GHz, 90 watt core i9 inside the Helios 700, which is a beast of a laptop in terms of size and weight.Omega215D - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
goddamn intel fanboys truly want to distort shit so there is no real competition left in this space.Namisecond - Monday, April 13, 2020 - link
There is no real consumer "competition" in this space. Intel's 10nm production is fubar'd for the time being, To the point where expected products are just now trickling into the market place. AMD could capitalize on this, but their production is constrained because they don't have full control of their own production. This is the mobile market, not the desktop CPU market where you can have retail sales. OEMs are key here.2020 will be a bad year for laptop options.
vozmem - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Yes, you are right.It is crazy because the 6-core Razer laptop is also slightly more expensive than 8-core Asus laptop.
s.yu - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link
In all fairness, Razer is usually more expensive than Asus.alufan - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
hmm ok so the Intel CPU was supposed to be at 45w but could not maintain that probably du e to thermals, its supposed to clock higher but ditto and the 2060 is a higher performance version, however other tests still show the Ryzen ahead on 8 core Intels as well, it also seems to be a common result that the AMD is a long long way ahead on its battery life, not sure about other countries but this week in the UK we have had every online seller doing ads on TV pushing Intel laptops to the max, no doubt paid for by Intels rebate scheme dirty tricks me thinks but the truth will out gen 10 indeed lolDeicidium369 - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
95% of the market vs 5% of the market - that's called playing to the largest potential audience. Sorry but Intel outsells AMD at every single price point - regardless of what the AMD fanboys say - Revenues do not lie.Qasar - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
well other sites say different about who out sells who, others here have even posted links that show this."Revenues do not lie. " of course they dont, specially when you overcharge for your products