
Ryzen 4000 Review - caseyf7
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3534769/ryzen-4000-review-amds-7nm-ryzen-9-offers-game-changing-performance-for-laptops.html
======
tmpz22
An interesting proxy for CPU evolution is seeing the recommendations shift in
communities like reddit.com/r/buildapc. Last year many medium to high end
builds were choosing intel CPUs, but now most are recommending AMD. The last
bastion will be professional gamers and streamers when they upgrade their
9900KS level CPUs - likely when the new 3080 gpus come out.

Good on AMD for pushing the competition forward by significant amounts.

~~~
traden209
You still can't beat intel at the high end. Both in terms of heat and
performance. If you have a task that doesn't parallelize well, you can't beat
intel.

Games are traditionally single threaded and hard to parallelize.

However: you don't need to be the best, you just need to be at the "agreed
upon" high end for game requirements, which is the xbox and ps4 (soon to be
next gen).

And so, if you're trying to build a "generation proof" gaming PC in a standard
sized case, the 3800X is currently your best bet for a new build (or waiting
for zen3). If you're trying to do SFF, Intel may be a better choice.

Regardless: AMD's competition has dropped the prices in the "enthusiast"
segment. My next build will be AMD, simply because I don't need the best of
the best, but rather, good enough.

~~~
blattimwind
> Games are traditionally single threaded and hard to parallelize.

On my 3900X I've seen even single player action titles utilize 16+ threads
with overall CPU utilization reaching peaks of 80-90 %.

Yes, it maybe be _hard_ to parallelize game engines, but all major ones
heavily use multiple cores. A bunch of years ago (4-5) people would recommend
an i3-K dual core for gaming, because you could overclock it to 5+ GHz on air.
That was sufficient for many titles back then. (And these i3s would sometimes
give you higher FPS compared to the more expensive quad-core options). But a
CPU like that is far too weak for newer titles.

> You still can't beat intel at the high end. Both in terms of heat and
> performance. If you have a task that doesn't parallelize well, you can't
> beat intel.

In terms of heat, that is, performance per Watt, Intel's high end is quite a
bit worse than AMD's. It is true however that you can get slightly higher
single-threaded performance out of Intel's highest-end CPUs, but not because
they are more efficient (- AMD is better both perf/W and IPC-wise), but just
by raw, unadulterated clock speed, pushing them to 5+ GHz. And that causes
them to burn _a lot_ of power.

Zen 2 has consistently ~10-15 % higher performance clock-for-clock compared to
Intel's best while achieving approximately 60-80 % higher perf/W.

This LTT review captures the massive advantage Zen 2 has in efficiency:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA)

~~~
serf
>On my 3900X I've seen even single player action titles utilize 16+ threads
with overall CPU utilization reaching peaks of 80-90 %.

which ones? genuinely curious. I have two Intel E5 eight-cores in an old
workstation and rarely ever see a game using more than 2-4 threads.

I guess i'm not spending my time on the latest and great AAA games as soon as
they come out, but i've spent quite a few (shameful) hours gaming on fairly
recent titles.

~~~
0-_-0
Doom Eternal doesn't even have a main thread and uses a dependency graph of
jobs, so should paralellize reeeeally well across multiple cores

------
piinbinary
The LTT review [0] also had good things to say about the battery life. This
CPU seems very power-efficient when compared to a 9980HK.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA)

~~~
loeg
FWIW, loaded battery life is intrinsically linked to the thermal / cooling
aspect of CPU performance discussed in the article. Mechanically, CPUs are
just simple resisters converting stored battery energy into heat.

Idle battery power is also interesting, and even the older Zen 1 had pretty
good reduction in power consumption at idle (C1).

~~~
baybal2
Intel still best on idle power use because of on package regulator, and still
better powergating

~~~
williadc
Intel dropped FIVR for the Skylake generation[1], though it's back on
Ivybridge[2].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture)#Fe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_\(microarchitecture\)#Features)
[2]: Used to work there, played a minor part in enabling IDC to integrate the
FIVR IP.

------
loser777
The natural question now is how much the i9-10980HK differs from the 9980HK
that the 4800HS seems to trounce handily. Judging by the fact that it's still
on some iteration of 14nm(++++++), it looks to be more of the same strategy of
aggressive turbo to hopefully compensate for lackluster IPC.

Hope to see more high performance AMD laptop design wins as a result!

~~~
MuffinFlavored
> 14nm(++++++)

What do you mean by this?

~~~
jdsully
Intel has been repeatedly tuning their 14nm process and adding a plus at the
end each time. It's starting to get a bit ridiculous.

~~~
wtallis
For reference, Intel's first 14nm mobile processors were introduced from late
2014 through mid 2015. They've done one major microarchitecture update since
then, and the rest of their microarchitecture and fab refinements in the
intervening years have been minor updates as they're in a holding pattern
waiting for their fabs to deliver a 10nm process that is viable for mass
production.

The first 10nm process was such an abject failure that Intel now prefers to
pretend it didn't happen. The second 10nm process produced laptop processors
that began shipping last fall, but are still mixed in with 14nm processors
that are branded as part of the same generation.

~~~
api
Apparently a big chunk of those top-bin 10nm chips ended up going to Apple for
the new 2020 Air.

~~~
paulmd
Sure, Intel sold some to Apple, but I’ve been seeing 1/3 to 1/2 of the laptops
Costco carries with Ice Lake since before thanksgiving. Warehouse stores, not
even premium channels.

They’re not in nearly the short supply that some people like to imply.

AMD is quite late to market with their mobile 7nm products. Their desktop
products are far more timely, if their mobile had been launched with the
desktop they would have beaten Intel, instead they basically are 6 months late
to market.

~~~
dannyw
Late to market, but better performance.

~~~
paulmd
Yes, incrementally better, not drastically, as compared to the 14nm parts.

That’s how generational leaps work. Competitors one-up each other, just like
Intel one-upped the 1000 series with Coffee Lake. Time to market lost is time
you’re giving your competitor to get their next generation ready.

Intel is now only 6 months away from their next release, Tiger Lake. We are
already starting to see a few benchmarks leak out.

I don’t get why people think it’s such a big ask to not release half their
lineup 9 months late. For that matter, where are the socketed APUs?

~~~
zrm
It's probably the same answer to both. Demand is still high but TSMC has
finite 7nm fab capacity and the APUs have lower margins. What's the hurry to
release lower margin APUs if the fabs are still busy making higher margin
CPUs?

------
bloody-crow
It's very promising. Can't wait to see more laptop offers on this chip. The
current Asus Zephyrus G14 seems to gamer-y in terms of the design.

I'd buy the same hardware in a more mature and grown-up chassis like current
Dell XPS 13 in a heartbeat.

~~~
nchelluri
I want this in an XPS 13 too. I just bought an XPS 13 last year, running
Ubuntu, and it's very nice, aside from the whine when it's plugged in.

~~~
chkass
I'd settle for an XPS 13 with 32GB of RAM :( 16GB is the current limit.

~~~
MatekCopatek
Not with this year's model (XPS 13 9300) - 32 GB is now available.

~~~
slaw
$199 motile m141 laptop - up to 32GB no coil whine and has matte screen.

~~~
nchelluri
I would love to have one of these for a week or two to try it out. It's so
cheap it might be worth picking up on the off chance I love it.

~~~
lhl
Here's a pretty comprehensive review I wrote on it a few months back:
[https://randomfoo.net/2019/12/25/motile-m142-cheapo-linux-
la...](https://randomfoo.net/2019/12/25/motile-m142-cheapo-linux-laptop-notes)

It's surprisingly good as a cheap laptop, but as a daily driver, I'd just wait
a month or so and get a 4000U thin and light at this point.

~~~
nchelluri
thank you! I'll give it a read.

------
Niccizero
I'm excitedly awaiting for the Ryzen 4000 Thinkpad anouncements, hopefully I
can get to upgrade my aging P51. First time I'm exited for a tech launch in a
long time.

~~~
mikenew
They've been announced, although the details aren't 100%:
[https://www.ultrabookreview.com/35805-lenovo-
thinkpad-t14-t1...](https://www.ultrabookreview.com/35805-lenovo-
thinkpad-t14-t14s/)

~~~
MrUnderhill
Looks like all the new Ryzen Thinkpads announced so far will use the lower
power 15W models. I would love for 470p to make a return - a "T14p" with the
4900HS would be pretty sweet.

------
michaelyoshika
Not following closely to the CPU industry. What right steps have AMD taken to
achieve the recent success (compared with Intel)?

~~~
jakogut
Intel made missteps with their 10nm process, and manufacturing chips in house.
Yields for their new process are too low for retail demand. Additionally clock
speeds are higher with the more mature 14nm process of Kaby Lake, which is
itself a more refined version of Skylake. With low yields, manufacturing is
too expensive, and performance isn't much improved, leaving Intel little
reason to bring these new chips to market. As a result, they've been refining
and refreshing chips since Skylake. Kaby Lake introduced a bump in core count,
as a response to AMD's release of their Zen microarchitecture.

AMD overcame these challenges in several ways. They're fabless, choosing to
partner with semiconductor manufacturers like TSMC rather than manufacturing
chips themselves. TSMC's current 7nm process node is one generation ahead of
Intel's 14nm node, roughly on par with Intel's 10nm node. Smaller process
means more efficient, and often more performant.

AMD also created a new architecture using a "chiplet" design and an
interconnect (Zen), rather than the older monolithic die used by Intel. This
increases yields and simplifies manufacturing, while making chips modular.
Chiplets containing a number of cores can be combined into a single package to
create various SKUs, targeting different market segments.

~~~
myself248
Oh that's interesting, I had always seen the chiplet thing as purely for yield
reasons, I never thought about the "one wafer, tons of SKUs" aspect.

It also, I believe, lets them use a different process node for the I/O parts
of the assembly, which may be deliberate -- not only do I/O transceivers not
benefit from the smaller silicon, it may actually hurt them when you look at
the electrical needs of driving larger buses, surviving potential ESD events,
etc. (That's purely speculation on my part, and I'd love to hear from someone
with more clue..)

~~~
akiselev
"one wafer, tons of SKUs" has been how the semiconductor industry has managed
to keep their products evolving and so cheap for decades. Intel chips are
largely all the same per generation and product line (low core count i3/5/7,
high core count i7/i9, and Xeon). Whether it's an i3 or an i7 depends on how
many manufacturing errors were on the surface of their monolithic chip - any
core that doesn't pass the tests is disabled by activating some fuses. The
chips with the fewest errors contain the most working cores and so on. The
same holds for flash/SSD memory and RAM, where frequency/stability are used as
the measure instead of errors on the surface of the chip.

The key is that AMD's chiplets are about 80 mm^2 in size whereas a recent i7
is something like 130 mm^2. It doesn't sound that much smaller but when it
comes to economies of scale, it makes a huge difference when, for example, a
giant scratch takes out half a dozen chiplets instead of two or three full
Intel processors. AMD trades performance - since the IO die that holds the
chiplets is much bigger than an Intel CPU (300+ mm^2) the communication
between chiplets is higher latency - for much better unit economics.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have chips like IBM z mainframe CPUs
which are as big as 600 mm^2 many of which are just thrown out instead of
getting binned so their yield is tiny and each chip costs tens of hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

------
andy_ppp
Anyone got a list of laptops with this in, I'm due an upgrade and would like a
4k ish screen. Don't really care about gaming at all, would just like
everything to be very fast.

Battery life on these parts really shocked me. At least as good as Intel for
far better performance!

------
p1necone
Once again I see "Ryzen 4000 Review" and once again I'm disappointed to find
out that it's actually a review of the 4000 series laptop processors. Can we
change the title to reflect that? They're not the same - laptop 4000 is the
same architecture as the desktop 3000 cpus (that came out last year) afaik
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_2)).

~~~
alecmg
You're not going to see Zen 3 until Q4 earliest

------
uyuioi
Come on Apple. Time to move to AMD!

~~~
lukevp
Apple's most likely going to move to custom ARM processors for a lot of their
laptops.

~~~
flatiron
Catalina dropping 32 bit support screams to me the next MacOS will support ARM
with a Rosetta like amd64 translation layer.

~~~
millstone
Maybe not Rosetta-like as Apple now controls the chip design? Perhaps Nvidia
Denver style.

~~~
flatiron
i didn't know about that. just read the wikipedia article and nvidia wanted to
support x86 but intel wouldn't let them use their patents. i would be SUPER
surprised if that wasn't the same with Apple.

------
DeathArrow
I don't get why AMD used 3000 naming for desktop Zen 2 CPUs and 4000 for
mobile CPUs.

It is a bit misleading. When I researched some laptops and saw trhey had Ryzen
7 3700U I wronly presumed they are using Zen 2 CPUs, but I've found out that
3000 series mobile CPUs are using Zen+.

~~~
Out_of_Characte
Although it seems confusing it actually makes sense from a business
perspective, The Mobile chips are always designed AFTER the general cpu design
with laptop graphics, different thermals and a tighter market (read, older,
more mature process). That's why the technology is behind a few months
compared to server/desktop. But its still AMD's "newest" chip they can
produce. Therefore its better to create a definitive line for the customer
that the 4000 series is simply the most up-to-date chip in any market and
lineup to avoid confusion.

~~~
tracker1
That said, it would be nice to see a generation of fractional numbers to just
re-align... 4x50H/U for the refresh, then next generation, just wait.

It's far more about marketing... 4000 is higher than 3000, but you'd have to
know there are no 4000 desktop CPUs when shopping, so it still creates
confusion.

------
heelix
I'm really excited with the prospect of a a fast, multi core chip that does
not throttle on a laptop. That G14 that everyone seems to be doing the initial
review with shows really nice single and multicore performance with a small
thermal signature. The gaming 'workout' is not terribly dissimilar to what I'd
hope to see unplugged doing development.

The i9 I've got in my work laptop just cannot handle the watts it tries to
consume. I've held off updating my personal laptop waiting for something that
is not an 8lb+ brick to allow it to run with a load. Should be a promising
Spring/Summer.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
Why use a laptop if your work appears to befit a desktop? A lot more power and
RAM expansion for less cash.

> small thermal signature

When I were a lad, we used to call that 'warm' :)

~~~
lonelappde
Usually because desktops can't be moved easily.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
I hadn't thought of it that way, but aren't there small PCs that have been
designed to be portable? Guy I worked with had one and it was tiny. Get one a
little less tiny and you have ventilation + expansion (not as much as a
desktop but still better than a laptop). Just have a monitor at work & at
home, carry the pooter around.

~~~
_ph_
It can be done, but most people, who don't work at just one desk prefer the
laptop as you can quickly move it to a meeting room etc. When you move the
small PC, you not only need to carry keyboard and mouse and have a screen, it
also means restarting the machine. A laptop keeps running and has almost
everything in one package.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
Fair point.

------
lmilcin
I have been holding out for almost a year already to replace my T440s with a
new Ryzen-powered Thinkpad. Hope I won't have to wait for long now.

~~~
bcrosby95
I've been holding out on replacing my XPS 13 with a Thinkpad T series with a
Zen 2 processor. I recently bought my wife one and I love the ergonomics of
the 14" way better than the 13".

Probably my favorite laptop I've ever tried.

~~~
thelittleone
Which T model did you buy her?

~~~
bcrosby95
T480. It was on sale for $750 at the time.

------
Zenst
My favorite review so far has to be:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLH0Q6CZF4&t=0s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aLH0Q6CZF4&t=0s)
"Now Intel is in (even more) Trouble - AMD RYZEN 4000 Mobile Review (ASUS ROG
Zephyrus G14)"

by der8auer

~~~
eBombzor
I liked how he showed the improvements from replacing the default TIM with a
liquid based TIM. I wonder if you could get the same improvement from using
Thermal Grizzly. I know most people won't want to replace TIM every month for
liquid metal, or be comfortable rubbing nail polish on the circuits.

~~~
Zenst
I'd imagine GamersNexus on YT would be all over that one as they are sponsored
by them. However, Steve tends to be down the list when it comes to getting new
toys to play with.

Yes, replacing the LLM every few months, would be serious level of dedication
IMHO and not sure I'm aware of anybody would go to that effort - however it
was good to see what was possible.

Still, nice to see that they did use thermal paste and not pads in the
production, though we don't know what paste they used. If that was known then
some crude gestimations could be extrapolated.

They did however put some attention to that cooling system and was very
interesting in the review how the fan blades are varying length in an effort
to reduce fan noise - I'd never considered that or been aware of that before
and made sense as well as being kinda neat attention to detail thinking.

Me personally, I'd not want to do any of that until warranty expired and to
eek out more life in that puppy. Though, as I'm rockin a Core2Duo, you kinda
feel my budget is never going to see this. Still nice to virtual experience
it.

Yes the whole nail polish, kinda neat hack way of doing things and not aware
of any downsides with that - beyond warranty, though at least you wouldn't
have to replace that periodically compared to LM.

------
djsumdog
I was looking forward to other laptops in the 4000 series, but I guess with
the current world situation, those will probably be pushed back to fall
releases. I'd like to see one of these things with Ryzen 4000 + amdgpu as a
Linux laptop.

~~~
tracker1
Agreed.. would love to see some Ryzen 4000 options from System 76 and Dell.

------
Roritharr
I still have not heard an official statement what the Thunderbolt 3 story is
for these CPUs. Could we get it? Will we get it?

Without this I simply can't buy em as we've invested in TB3 Docks for the past
two years and are pretty happy with them.

~~~
Symmetry
The new Thinkpad T14 is supposed to have a TB3 on both the Intel and AMD
versions, at least.

~~~
chx
That has not been confirmed. There is nothing official on the T14 on the
Lenovo site yet except from the press release.

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/commercial-
notebook/thinkpad/th...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/commercial-
notebook/thinkpad/thinkpad-t14-series/c/22TPT14) (and yes that's the right
url, try replacing "thinkpad-t14-series" with "x" you will be redirected
there)

~~~
Symmetry
I'm going off of the datasheet reproduced here:

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T14-Ryzen-4000...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T14-Ryzen-4000-version-does-have-RJ45-upgradable-RAM.454869.0.html)

~~~
chx
everybody does that and it's getting really boring fixing this. When the PSREF
is out then we can talk until then, that's just a heap of typos. They already
published a correction over RJ45 and blablabla i need to type this up four
times a week on various social media, people, get a grip, there is ONE
certified AMD motherboard with TB3, an extremely expensive Threadripper it is
beyond unlikely that it will happen

------
noipv4
One (biased?) metric of performance and efficiency of modern cpu is the Random
X algorithm used in mining cryptocurrency like Monero. It is designed to use
all the cpu subsystems including memory controller. The top CPUs by far for
RandomX are AMD ryzen 3000 series both in terms of performance as well as
efficiency.

[https://monerobenchmarks.info/](https://monerobenchmarks.info/)

------
mjevans
I would really like to see Laptop Reviews sort by price first, then logical
maximums within a given narrow price range.

It would make sense to group by Price, then key secondary features like:
Weight, Screen Quality, Raw performance (Mixed current year games score, Disk
Bound, CPU bound, GPU bound) when plugged in, maximum battery time (default
out of box experience).

~~~
zepearl
I'm not saying that you're wrong, but e.g. im my case the priorities are
different (screen quality, keyboard, battery, touchpad/clickpad/trackpoint,
weight, etc... and CPU&GPU performance would be last but potentially weighted
against watt consumption) => can become complicated => I don't think that a
"universal" method of getting the "ultimate" sorted list is feasible => I'd
definitely love a site that would allow to set my own priorities and get as
result the "perfect" laptop/notebook that matches at most the
expectations/priorities :)

Some retailers have such sites, but maybe not reviewer-sites? (I do use that
[https://www.notebookcheck.net](https://www.notebookcheck.net) whenever I want
to buy something, but their selection criteria is limited)

In my case price has never been a _direct_ primary selection criteria - I
always bought the gadget that met all my minimum requirements but which didn't
exceed the budget that I had available.

~~~
mjevans
For me it's about what works the least, and 'high price' is usually the main
consideration since I __rarely use__ the laptop in question. My use case for a
laptop is a couple times a year when I'm at a tech or similar convention for a
weekend, or very very light use when visiting a relative's house for an hour
or two.

I agree that the screen and keyboard quality are also factors that veto a
laptop; but those are much more subjective and difficult to actually rank. I
think that might go in to an 'editors choice' within a given price point. Then
you'd compare the 2-4 that fit within your budget needs.

------
torgian
Cool to see a mobile Ryzen chip performing well, but there was nothing
mentioned about thermals in all their tests. That’s more concerning to me in a
lighter laptop than the “muscle-books”

------
chx
This is a dishonest review. The numbers are fine but the article surrounding
it is dishonest. He is often repeating claims on weight but he compares 2070
(115W) and 2080 (150W) GPU laptops to a 2060 Max Q (65W) laptop. Mind you,
there are no other 2060 Max Q laptops yet but there are 2060 laptops, that
would've been much closer.

~~~
jandrese
The article almost never stops mentioning that it's competing quite well
against laptops that are 50% or 100% heavier. I don't think it is dishonest.
They include some similar size laptops in the graphs, but the results aren't
as interesting because it is such a one sided result. The article is trying to
sell you on a laptop that performs like a bulky heavy gaming laptop but
travels like a mid range spreadsheet pusher.

~~~
chx
It's competing well on CPU benchmarks. The moment it benches a game
[https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2020/03/asus_rog_ze...](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2020/03/asus_rog_zephyrus_g14_rotr_dx11_19x10_very_high-100836713-orig.jpg)
the picture becomes more nuanced.

~~~
jdsully
That's comparing a GTX 2060 to a 2080 in the Intel laptops. Now if you care
about gaming it's fair to point out there aren't any GTX 2080 laptops with AMD
being reviewed, but it's not an indication of the performance it could have
with a full spec GPU. Hopefully we should see one in the next few weeks.

~~~
chx
You were saying "The article is trying to sell you on a laptop that performs
like a bulky heavy gaming laptop but travels like a mid range spreadsheet
pusher." but i was saying it does not perform like a bulky heavy gaming laptop
because it has an inferior GPU compared to those.

I am sure once it's on a more equal footing there will be some small gains but
nothign earth shattering, alas.

~~~
jdsully
I think people are more excited about the possibilities of the CPU than this
specific laptop, but fair point.

------
Causality1
I'm glad to see AMD working on its single core IPC performance. The only CPU-
bound workload I have as a user are game emulators, for which multicore
performance is nearly irrelevant.

------
jfb
PC World is still a going concern?

~~~
johnvanommen
PC Magazine employed John Dvorak up until 2018!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18044106)

~~~
jfb
How about that.

