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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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.