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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ingwe - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
This is very exciting! Especially those battery life numbers.shabby - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Wow ya i was hoping it would at least match intel not double intels battery life lolBigMamaInHouse - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
CB R20 Scores are wrong Again :-)Cooe - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
The scores are right, they are just labeled wrong lol.SolarBear28 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
@IanCutress The scores should be reversedSamus - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
It isn't just exciting. It's shocking. AMD finally has a viable notebook CPU.Now they need to come up with something worthy against the U series for ultraportables because the current crop Ryzen U parts (like the Pro 3500U) are a tough pill to swallow since they seem to run closer to 35w under any sort of load.
Gondalf - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Here i can see only and AMD 8 cores SKU beating a 6 cores one. There is nothing to be shocked.Try a 8 cores Intel laptop instead, equipped with a new intel SKU and not with one shipped one year ago.
Qasar - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
and what if the 8 core intel laptop couldnt compete with this one, then what ? would you find a way to make up some lame BS reason as to why it still lost??? come one gondalf, get a lifeGondalf - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
Pretty pointless to compare a 6 core cpu with a 8 core one.Moreover the article is rushed because Intel SKUs have a 15ms delay to go from idle to max turbo.
Very likely the Intel Laptop suffer of bad settings or wrong/obsolete bios. Same applies to power measures, with a 80Wh battery an Intel laptop can last around 10 hours browsing web with GPU down. My 38Wh battery give me 5 hours of the same workload, with GPU down.
My bet Intel laptop was with GPU up under the test.
So better wait less rushed reviews to judge.
Qasar - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link
pretty pointless to try everything you can do to give intel excuses as to why they are losing gondalf, even if intel had more cores, they would still be losing, i believe zen 2 desktop vs intels desktop cpus show this, more cores for intel, and intel still looses on most tests, but yet if it was the other way around, it would be ok, and you would just bash amd for making an inferior product. either way, your just trying to come up with lame BS as to why intel lost, like most i bet, knew you would. very likely, intel just has the inferior product right now.