The Huawei MateBook 16 Review, Powered by AMD Ryzen 7 5800H: Ecosystem Plus
by Dr. Ian Cutress on October 20, 2021 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- AMD
- Huawei
- Matebook
- Ryzen
- Zen 3
- MateBook 16
- Huawei Share
- Ryzen 7 5800H
Graphics Performance: Vega 8 in Mobile
The world of mobile graphics is somewhat of a wild west right now. Both AMD and Intel equip all their mobile processors with, at least physically, the same configuration from top to bottom in their stacks. Intel has a base 96-EU Xe graphics solution that goes in all of its 15 W to 65 W mobile processors, while AMD has a Vega 8 solution that also goes from 15 W to 45 W and above. That means the graphics performance of these parts matters a lot on the processor performance being used, how well the power is managed between the CPU and GPU, but also the memory solutions.
This is where the Vega 8 inside the Ryzen 7 5800H might falter. The best design for this processor would be to enable LPDDR4X memory, with a 68.2 GB/s bandwidth. That configuration is typically used for super thin and light ultrabooks with U-series processors. The bigger the system, the more likely you are to end up with regular DDR4-3200, which in dual channel mode goes up to 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. This is also because most big H-series systems come with discrete graphics, and so DDR4 vs LPDDR4x is more a discussion about cost.
That being said, the Vega 8 graphics solution typically has to game at lower resolutions and quality settings, where CPU performance matters more. Between the synthetic and real-world gaming tests, this could be interesting.
Overall we’re seeing small improvements compared to Zen 2 processors with integrated graphics, however the Vega 8 solution still sits behind the Intel Core i7-1185G7, which is usually equipped with LPDDR4X.
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Oxford Guy - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
But it has a screen that will shatter if you put a sticker over the webcam. Think of that advantage.gijames1225 - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
If there's a way to bump this up to 32GB of RAM these could be nice XPS 15 competitors for people who just need the CPU performance.Samus - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
I would consider staying 16GB (2x8GB) to keep with single rank memory. That reduces latency quite a bit which really matters with an iGPU.schujj07 - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
That isn't true at all. At worst the difference in latency is just over 1ns between DR & SR. When it comes to performance, both gaming and application see typically better performance using 4 ranks vs 2 ranks.https://www.tomshardware.com/features/ryzen-5000-m...
EasyListening - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
2 sticks of dual rank is probably the best for Ryzen, but I'm not sure if that applies to the iGPU versions. Gamers Nexus did a story on dual rank vs single rank on Ryzen.schujj07 - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Tomshardware did one as well for the iGPU. For gaming the 2 sticks of dual rank was never slower than 2 sticks single rank. Granted the differences were just 1 -1.5fps across the 7 games geometric mean. The geometric mean for CPU performance was slightly larger for 2 stick dual rank vs 2 sticks single rank.Oxford Guy - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
It has been a few years (the review I read) but a desktop gaming test with a discrete GPU showed considerably better framerates with dual-rank RAM in some games.Prestissimo - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Pretty much every other laptop with H-CPU can be configured with 32GB. Lenovo, HP, Asus all have that option. Huawei is the exception here, guess they don't know their target consumers usecase.lightningz71 - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
This is SO close... There are a couple of misses here:1) Their "Performance" mode doesn't really appear to be hitting 45 watts. It's more like, we're allowing it to stay at a full 35 watts, as opposed to trying to optimize battery. If they had actually allowed it to push that full 45 watts that the chip is capable of, the benchmarks might have been better.
2) That RAM configuration. Either bite the cost bullet and go with LPDDR4X at 16GB, or go for 32GB of dual rank DRAM, and since it's being soldered on the board, optimize the CL and secondary latency settings. The iGPU in that chip is capable of notably more than what was shown in the benchmarks. Look at the Surfacebook numbers in some of the tests to see what the U chip can do, this is capable of more...
3) That Webcam. It's worth it to me, and most of the laptop road warriors that I talk to to have at least a modest bezel along the top of the monitor that could fit a webcam and allow you to open and close the laptop without getting fingerprints on the screen.
TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - link
Agreed on the RAM. If youre gonna solder it give us 4733 MHz LPDDR4X.