
AMD’s Mobile Revival: Redefining the Notebook Business with the Ryzen 9 4900HS - partingshots
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-redefining-the-notebook-business-with-the-ryzen-9-4900hs-a-review/8
======
DCKing
What is interesting here is that multiple news outlets are calling this "AMD's
revival". As far as I'm aware AMD has always been kind of "second rate" in the
mobile space - until now, apparently. There's nothing they're really reviving
from - it's a first.

Even when AMD was previously whooping Intel - in the Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4
days - AMD was not particularly great in the mobile space. The Athlon 64 tech
was downscaled for mobile uses fine, but AMD did not have a good answer to
Intel's broad Centrino platform for mobile technologies. Moreover, Intel was
quick to introduce the Pentium M on the mobile market, which was a much better
and competitive product than the Pentium 4 (and the direct predecessor of the
"Core" branded processors that marginalized AMD again later). AMD was
competitive with Intel before the Athlon 64 too, but the mobile market was
more niche before the early 2000s and the differences were smaller anyway. AMD
was ahead of Intel multiple times in the past, but never in laptops.

This seems to be the first instance where AMD is not only "sort of
competitive, but meh" in mobile products - it's the first instance where
they're in the lead technology wise. The first time you could be better off
buying an AMD laptop.

~~~
Plasmoid2000ad
Agreed.

I remember you were more likely to spot a VIA processor in a laptop then spot
an AMD processor before the Athlon 64 mobile processors arrived as Turion.

This is new.

Intel really did accelerate into the laptop mobile space with Centrino. It
seemed like no one could match them on a combination of performance,
aggressive power saving and battery life, consistently good WiFi and good GPU
solutions (Nvidia optimus integration)

It looked up until now like Intel had some secret sauce in it's drivers or
elsewhere as well, to get such (relatively) good battery life out of the pig
that Windows running non-UWP apps can be. I wonder how much is AMD getting
better at software/drivers and optimization, and how much is AMD just getting
such a lead in power usage and performance that they can compensate their
software.

~~~
littlestymaar
> to get such (relatively) good battery life out of the pig that Windows
> running non-UWP apps can be.

What does UWP change regarding battery consumption ?

~~~
Plasmoid2000ad
UWP apps use different APIs to interact with windows than Win32. So at least
in theory, the OS can actively manage them similar to Android or iOS apps.

I've noticed that Zen 2 on desktop can easily suffer from re-occurring spikes
in temperature, caused by background Win32 running on a 10-30 second timer,
doing small amount of work that causes the cpu to Boost to it's maximum clock,
then drop back down. I could see that mitigated a lot of that with drivers or
CPU code that is much slower to ramp up in response to load, but it would be
better still if the OS wasn't running any Apps that behaved like that,
especially while User isn't actively interacting.

------
vvanders
[https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-
red...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-redefining-
the-notebook-business-with-the-ryzen-9-4900hs-a-review/5) is the page you
really want to look at along with the battery life at
[https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-
red...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15708/amds-mobile-revival-redefining-
the-notebook-business-with-the-ryzen-9-4900hs-a-review/10) which just destroys
the i7-9750H.

~~~
heelix
I picked my kid one of the new 4800h based laptops for the heavy Adobe work
she does at work and university. Unplugged, I can watch full screen twitch.tv
videos with all indications looking like the 9+ hour estimate might be correct
- which was a bit of a shocker. I've not had a chance to do much else with
it... as she won't give it back. :)

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Yeah, that's quite a shocker truth be told. I bought a little "netbook" last
year for my mom and I was surprised the Intel Goldmont+ [0] it has inside
could pull 11 hours of netflix.

Now having a beast like those Ryzens pull a similar feat? Sign me up! I'm
looking forward to getting one of these!

[0] Goldmont(+) is an architecture where Intel pulled a few tricks from
Skylake, put them in the blender with an Atom and got a surprisingly good, yet
power efficient design... For late 2018 that is. Seems AMD topped them there
too, and without having to go for a less powerful design.

~~~
PenguinCoder
I've been looking for a good netbook that isn't a chromebook. Which one did
you pick up?

~~~
AsyncAwait
Not OP, but if you're looking for solid performance in a tiny form-factor, I'd
suggest One Netbook 3.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
I'm OP: got a way too stripped down hp stream. For the use case ("here you go
mom, you got firefox and netflix installed") it was more than enough.

But it does have some severe limitations. Soldered 4GB RAM and 32gb eMMC
drive. Soldered everything basically. The procesor has a 6W TDP [0]. The free
storage space is so limited that once it got a big windows update and I had to
disable virtual memory just to get windows to update, then clean the update
files and re-enable virtual memory.

OTOH, the processor has 4MB of L2 cache. That's a monster performance boost in
that form-factor, so it doesn't feel like previous Atoms (and props to intel
for not calling an Atom, it's called Celeron N4000 or Pentium N5000). Do take
into account this is Q4-2017 tech, so the Ryzens these year have leapt over
it/are about to.

The computer doesn't have fans, but it never gets hot, a bit warm at most. The
final touch is a mate screen[1] at 11", paired with a comfortable keyboard.
Nothing about it is incredible, but I got it at a good discount (about $180)
which was a killer price.

I did a quick amazon search and it seems the 11" model has been discontinued
and people are selling at $300 (that's a good one) and the 14" stands at $240
lowest price.

As for buying someth today, I've read great reviews of the Motile 11"
"netbook" [2] (not the 14") that packs a Ryzen 3200 (that's Zen+, not Zen 2)
which packs good performance into a low power envelope, with decent build and
good specs. They sold those at sub-$200 for a while, but then the (too?) good
reviews bumped that price up to the $300+ range. Still better than other
alternatives at that price, but not a killer.

I'd certainly look to buy one of those today if I was looking for the same use
case, mainly because I want to support AMD and low-power intel is still
kicking forward the arrival of Tremont (the successor to Goldmont+). And given
the performance AMD is pulling from these mobile Ryzens (specially the Renoir
chips), I doubt intel's Tremont chips will hold their ground -- rumour was
about 30% IPC improvement over Goldmont+, but that's already a very
underpowered chip.

Well this got quite a bit longer than I expected. That's all I know/care about
small, lightweight, cheap laptops these days. Hope it's useful to someone!

[0]
[https://ark.intel.com/content/www/es/es/ark/products/128988/...](https://ark.intel.com/content/www/es/es/ark/products/128988/intel-
celeron-processor-n4000-4m-cache-up-to-2-60-ghz.html)

[1] I hate glossy screens, the glare always makes my eyes uncomfortable if I
readd too long from them.

[2] [https://www.notebookcheck.net/Walmart-s-most-affordable-
Moti...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Walmart-s-most-affordable-Motile-Ryzen-
laptop-is-now-even-cheaper-at-just-210.451212.0.html)

~~~
notechback
I love to tinker but my best investment has been a recent purchase of an Acer
11" Chromebook ("311 spin") for the kids. Touchscreen/convertible, Celeron
4100, 64gb.

It just works, is less than 1kg, 9h battery life, no worries or what the kids
might click/install/... and for myself a hassle-free Linux (VM?) for some
quick evening fun.

Just wow. All my preconceptions about Chromebooks are gone.

Only downside is that for kid accounts you can't install chrome extensions -
so no ublock. But you can install Firefox' android version so also not the
worst.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Yeah, forgot to mention weight. The hp stream I talked about is about 1kg/2lbs
weight so it's super lightweight. Seems like we're talking about similar
machines, though you have extra storage space that would certainly make it
more comfortable to use on a day-to-day basis.

Don't really know why hp decided to kill de 11" form factor. I suppose that
"competes" with 11" tablets? Who knows. It's super comfortable to use and I've
taken it on a few trips sometimes and it can certainly show a presentation
slide, and even some light python programming on the go (but certainly not
numpy or anything "heavy").

Which is why those Ryzen 3200 notebooks looked so interesting at sub-$200! But
like I said, I'm certainly waiting for Renoir and seeing if some lightweight,
well powered, energy efficient, well-priced notebooks apper in the market.

------
rayhendricks
Microsoft please use this in the surface laptop update for this year. Last
years Ryzen Surface Laptop 3 was a bit anemic IMO. This would be insane, pair
with upgradeable storage and ram and I would buy over a MBP.

~~~
jeswin
Once a machine gets old, I usually donate it to somebody who can use it
further. In that regard, my Surface Book 2 is one purchase that I wholly
regret. Once the battery dies there is no way it can be replaced - not even by
Microsoft. They just send you a refurbished piece for $500.

This expensive machine contains high quality components. For the sake of the
environment, it should be illegal. I will never buy Microsoft again.

~~~
holtalanm
when i bought my laptop, foremost on my list of features to look for was
actually having the ability to open it up and replace parts (RAM, HD, Battery,
etc).

Unfortunately, Microsoft went the same direction as Apple with the Surface
Book (minimal to zero repairability).

~~~
thedays
It’s frustratingly hard to find a modern laptop with a replaceable battery.
Which laptop did you get?

~~~
holtalanm
unfortunately, I was unable to find one with a replaceable battery. I, at
least, got one with other replaceable parts, though. I got the HP ENVY 15z
(Ryzen 2500u).

~~~
thedays
Thanks for letting me know. It’s so frustrating that laptops don’t have
replaceable batteries these days as the batteries will last for much less time
than the rest of the laptop. Plus, if you use your laptop plugged into the ac
socket most the time like I do, this is not good for battery life and this
could also be avoided if the battery was removable.

------
rurban
I went from a €2000 MacBook to a €500 ThinkPad with Ryzen. Before the
lockdowns. Not comparable whatsoever. Benchmarks are usually 30% to 300%
faster. The Ryzen even blows away my fastest desktop machine with Intel and 4x
more RAM.

Unfortunately I cannot benchmark with the fast AMD because it switches
frequencies too fast. Lots of state changes. Eg it's faster on higher load
than on low load. All my benchmarking logic is wrong. You really need a locked
down kernel now for proper measurements.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Is that Renoir (Ryzen 4x00) chip? As far as I've read, the 3x00 mobile (Zen+)
were good but not amazing. The Renoirs seem to be blowing everyone out of the
water, and I've read several times that it seems to pack "desktop performance
on a mobile envelope".

~~~
rurban
Yes, just the old one, a 3200. Still much better than my Intels.

~~~
Ratiofarmings
While that might be true and I am happy that you're happy, this is something
different. Intel has competitive products to your cpu, outright better ones,
too.

To Ryzen 4000(mobile) they don't. It's not even close.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
And apparently they won't have either against Ryzen 4000 desktop (Zen3 on
7nm+). Interesting times ahead...

------
tedunangst
Kinda weird to deep link into the middle of a review.

~~~
twelvechairs
For a business notebook to the page comparing game performance.

~~~
eugeniub
I think you misread “notebook business” as “business notebook”

~~~
twelvechairs
oh apologies!

------
greendave
I misread the title as 'Redefining the business notebook...'

This looks like a very good CPU. At some point it would be nice to see a well-
cooled laptop with an 8 core CPU benchmarked against an 8 core desktop. AMD
seems to be doing very well on the TDP side and I wonder if we may be reaching
the point where only games and a handful of really demanding (non-cloud)
workloads require a desktop.

~~~
Arelius
> I wonder if we may be reaching the point where only games and a handful of
> really demanding (non-cloud) workloads require a desktop.

I sort-of feel like we are there already. I think we are quickly reaching the
point where _even_ games and most demanding workloads don't require a desktop.
I work on video games professionally and even I do most of my work on a
laptop.

~~~
_fullpint
Do you have any suggestions on laptops? I've been using a MacBook Air 2013 as
my daily drive for a good minute now.

I've been eyeing the Razer Blade, while the build quality is enticing, the
battery life has me worried.

~~~
neogodless
Laptops come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. If I was buying for
battery life, I would think the new AMD Ryzen 4000 series would be high on my
list though.

For reasonable portability, decent gaming and excellent CPU performance, the
laptop in the article is $1450, though availability is still low.

For seriously good performance on a tight budget, the Asus TUF 506 (A15) lines
packs a Ryzen 48xx and up to an RTX 2060 into a $1000-1200 laptop. The screen
has high performance on paper but older versions of this laptop had bad things
to say about the screen, so I'd wait for reviews.

There are other Asus options like the A17 and Zephyrus G15 which are all worth
a look, and starting to show up in stock here and there.

------
unnouinceput
On a somehow related-topic: I tried to get a laptop at beginning of this lock-
down (in Feb) and market was looking kinda bleak. Had my eyes on a Ryzen 7
with 8 GB RAM and 500 GB SSD which went for ~$500 at the time. Boom, gone.
Also what's left is only crap that's expensive. Laptops that only 4 months ago
were laughed at, now are for those $500 (I mean c'mon, a decade old CPU to pay
$500 for a laptop which has that is laughable IMO).

Anyway, coming to this topic, how fast you guys reckon this platform will come
to consumers, given the current circumstances? I'd wager is not this year.

~~~
neogodless
I've seen laptops with Ryzen 4800HS CPU in stock at NewEgg and Amazon. Not
often at Best Buy yet.

Look for the Asus TUF 506 and Asus Zephyrus G15.

~~~
OldHand2018
My wife needed a new laptop just recently and she's a ThinkPad-only kind of
gal. It was nice to see that there are many AMD options, but you can't buy
them. In fact, you can't buy much of anything from Lenovo. Outside of the L13
(what she ended up with), everything is "ships in 5+ weeks" on the Lenovo
site.

Having one in stock at NewEgg or Amazon might be helpful, but they are
typically base spec with soldered memory. If you want 16G+ memory, you are
just generally out of luck.

~~~
Vrondi
Don't buy those from Lenovo yet. They do not yet have this new generation of
Ryzen chip available. Don't buy a last-gen slow part.

------
snvzz
Still waiting for a similar review of the 4900U, which I understand targets a
much larger market with its very low power footprint.

------
ksec
Intel can still play the marketing budget game where it can bundle Thunderbolt
( for Apple ) or WiFi Module all while lowering price. ( For Server they were
doing it with SSD )

If anything I think that was one of the reason how Apple got their MacBook Air
to be priced at $999.

Despite having the better product, AMD will still need to work on its
marketing message, support material, distribution channel, Sales, and
forecasting. Right now AMD seems to be winning at Technical while Intel is
winning at operating.

~~~
close04
The TB controller is ~$9 [0]. That should be next to nothing for a premium
laptop. Yet even HP on their premium/pro Z-series went again with Intel,
despite the fact that the the current gen Z-series (a series that tops out at
~$10000 in the highest specced models) includes configurations like i5-8400H,
Intel UHD 630 iGPU, or 8GB of RAM. Not a real "workstation" config, not high
performance, no ISV certifications. Yet AMD was still left out.

I think one reason is many OEMs don't want to invest in an AMD platform until
they're sure AMD will be a long-term success. The second reason is probably
that they don't want to annoy Intel. I'm sure there are still plenty of tricks
Intel can pull to achieve the same result as in the past but without running
afoul of regulators.

[0]
[https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/...](https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/87742/thunderbolt-3-controllers.html)

~~~
ksec
>That should be next to nothing for a premium laptop.

For low end to mid range laptop a BOM cost of $9 is a lot. Especially to PC
manufacturers, so bad that installing crapware becomes their major source of
revenue. For high end the marketing budget comes in form of Rebate.

One of the major reason AMD got off to a good start from major manufactures is
actually because Intel cant even provide them enough chip in the first place.
And hence intel hasn't done much to push back at all because they dont have
the capacity right now.

~~~
close04
Which is why I said "premium laptop". I don't expect lower end laptops to
include it regardless of the cost of the controller itself. There's far more
than the $9 involved: greater PCB complexity, additional ICs, extra
connectors, etc.

But a premium line like HP's Z-series includes TB even in the lowest config
(i5-8400, UHD 630 iGPU) starting at ~$3500. I'm reasonably certain that going
with AMD CPUs would actually lower the BOM despite the extra $9 TB controller.
Intel CPUs are not cheap.

------
t4h4
Related: AMD 25x20 Energy Efficiency Initiative

[https://www.amd.com/25x20](https://www.amd.com/25x20)

~~~
IanCutress
I've been asking AMD since January to get an update to this with Renoir. They
say they are planning an update for later in the year. Perhaps there's a
better Renoir system to come?

------
sneak
Is there a firmware available for these that can disable the AMD version of
the Intel ME like the Purism/coreboot ones do?

~~~
monocasa
Nah, I don't think there's a way to disable PSP on ryzen.

~~~
my123
Hello,

Disabling PSP in such a case would be subjective. Ryzen doesn't support cache
as RAM anymore, with the PSP doing RAM initialization. The furthest that you'd
be able to is getting a minimal PSP firmware that only handles system bringup.

Some OEMs currently propose an option to disable the PSP <-> main processor
communication interface during bootup.

~~~
sneak
Would that proposed option disable PSP main memory access? It’s access to
system memory + access to PCI devices (networking) that most concerns me.

------
fluffything
Any idea how the 4900HS compares with the ARM chips in the new iPad Pro ?

I saw a benchmark of the 2020 iPad Pro vs the 2020 Macbook Air where the iPad
Pro won by quite a bit on pretty much every benchmark. If Apple were to
migrate the Macbook line out of Intel, it would surprise me if they didn't
migrate to ARM instead of AMD.

~~~
muro
I still have a hard time believing those benchmarks. Are they really comparing
the same things - just compiled for different architecture? Or is there more
behind it - one is a "mobile" benchmark, the other something else?

~~~
fluffything
> Are they really comparing the same things - just compiled for different
> architecture?

IIRC they were just Geekbench 4 and 5, which are standard benchmark suites for
the MacOs and iOS ecosystems, and IIRC only the subsets of the benchmark suite
that ran on both the Macbook Air and the iPad Pro where compared.

The only thing that I know about Geekbench is that it benchmarks application
performance, e.g., by running an application and performing a task (e.g.
Cinema, Adobe, etc.).

I don't know if they use the same applications and the same tasks on every
OS/arch combination. If they don't, the scores cannot be compared, and being
able to compare the scores is the only purpose of these tools... so I hope so
(the article I read seemed ok, so I had no reason to suspect).

Does anybody know for sure?

~~~
enaaem
They don't benchmark apps, but test on a set of standard workloads and
algorithms.

[https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-
workloads.pdf](https://www.geekbench.com/doc/geekbench5-cpu-workloads.pdf)

------
ct520
And yet many of us will still buy the next macbook pro 13inch refresh when it
comes out with a "good keyboard" and a substandard processor. Why is that? For
me - its the total package. The software/the hardware/integrations that just
work/the arguably best track pad in the industry.

CPU is one piece to the puzzle. I read on the message board to unlock the top
tier AMD mobile processors you had to guarantee it wouldn't be paired with
other crap hardware like vendors done in the past. We will see - hopefully
next microsoft refresh breaks this trend for amd.

~~~
teruakohatu
I may well end up buying it to replace my aging Macbook Pro, but it will be
because the cost of switching to Windows is too high, and because there is
proprietary software I need that won't run on Linux.

I am buying it because I have little choice, not because it represents good
value or the "total package". Few ports, bad repairability, and an OS that
won't run perfectly good 32-bit applications.

~~~
zrm
A good alternative to this is to run Linux and use Windows in a VM if
necessary. Having to use a VM for something once in a while is mildly
inconvenient, but it's not _that_ bad, and on the other hand it's just bad
enough to keep you on the lookout for ways to stop using it entirely.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
> use Windows in a VM if necessary

That's my last vestige of Windows usage, and by the end of the coming weekend
I'm hoping not to need that VM very often either.

My only other occasional need to use Windows tends to, ironically, revolve
around the software needed to root some Android phones.

------
knolax
Looking at the benchmarks it's amazing how despite not having significantly
more advanced gameplay compared to Civ 2, Civ 6 still manages to take up as
many resources as a modern FPS.

~~~
lonelappde
Video game FPS need GPU for graphics, not gameplay.

~~~
knolax
Civ 6 is still a 2D (gameplay-wise) tile based strategy game with a cartoon
art style. You can't even rotate the camera, there are plenty of optimizations
they could've made graphics wise.

------
PaulWaldman
What level of machine hardware will OEMs use to market these CPUs? Typically
the Intel lines brought the best overall components and AMD machines
were...lacking.

Will they have similar machines, but with the choice of AMD or Intel (XPS 15 /
X1 Extreme)? Microsoft went in this direction with the Surface Laptop 3 by
marketing the AMD line to their business customers. This will be expensive to
maintain, but may allow OEMs to breathe a little easier not being reliant on
Intel for their premium lines.

~~~
josteink
> What level of machine hardware will OEMs use to market these CPUs? Typically
> the Intel lines brought the best overall components and AMD machines
> were...lacking.

Lenovo is starting to have some parallel Intel vs AMD product-lines. For
instance you have the Thinkpad E490 (Intel) vs E495 (AMD) and E590 (Intel) vs
E595 (Intel).

Not sure about other vendors, but for those Thinkpad-models, AMD seems to come
out quite favourably.

~~~
muro
I wish they did the X-1 with AMD.

~~~
josteink
I'm actually considering the opposite: replacing my (2nd gen) X-1 with another
Thinkpad, primaryly an AMD-based one.

When doing that, my primary concern is going to be serviceability and
upgradability. The lack of options when it comes to upgrading my X-1 has been
somewhat disappointing.

For my laptop-needs, a top-specced E495 looks reasonably doable. Small enough
form factor, powerful enough for light dev work, and upgradable to handle
future needs. and at such a low a price-point that I'm willing to take a
chance, even though it might not be perfect.

Of course, If I hold out a little, these 4000-series mobile chips will start
shipping, and I might go for those instead :)

------
blitmap
I just want an AMD "gaming laptop" with an OLED, 4k display :( Ideally
3840x2400.

~~~
toastal
I'd rather have 1440p since I can't normally see the difference. In exchange
for less density, can I get a wider color gamut like DCI-P3 or AdobeRGB?

~~~
akvadrako
1440 is good enough for sharp text, but you need to use fractional scaling to
get reasonable ui sizes. Better to get 4K and use integer scaling.

~~~
Joeri
On a 1440p screen at 14 inch you end up at 210 dpi which is 2x integer
scaling.

Everyone puts in 1080p or 4k panels at 14 inch and both require fractional
scaling. It makes no sense why so few vendors opt for 1440p.

~~~
akvadrako
You aren't making any sense. 4K on 14 inches is 314 dpi. If you want 105 dpi
equivalent that's almost exactly 3x.

Personally I find that makes things too large, but in no way does 1440p have
an advantage in terms of fractional vs integer scaling.

------
dzonga
does anyone own both a t490 and t495 ? how do they compare ? and how's amd
with Linux i.e Ubuntu KDE variants ? I own a t490 running Kubuntu

~~~
wmf
At this point it's probably better to wait for the T14.

~~~
akvadrako
The T14 Intel is better then the T14 AMD. Better display and thunderbolt.

~~~
o_x
They both have 1x Thunderbolt 3, but yes, intel allows for 4K panel upgrade

~~~
akvadrako
T14 does not have thunderbolt.

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T14-T14s-X13-A...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-T14-T14s-X13-AMD-Ryzen-4000-versions-do-not-feature-Thunderbolt-
after-all.460707.0.html)

[https://nbreview.de/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/ThinkPad-T14-...](https://nbreview.de/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/ThinkPad-T14-AMD-Datasheet.pdf)

------
wasyl
I see lots of these business notebooks come with 8GB of RAM. Is it really
enough for most users? I assumed 16GB should be the standard by now,
especially with how memory hungry day-to-day software is.

~~~
Ratiofarmings
If you do some text processing, some email and generally office software, 8gb
is absolutely enough. Beyond that it's not anymore. 16gb is where most people
with more serious applications are happy. The cool kids have 32gb. Anybody who
needs even more knows it.

------
mzmzmzm
I hope that AMD having decent mobile performance in some of this year's
laptops will make the next cycle of laptops really see OEMs embrace the
platform. While they are catching up with performance, cooling solutions,
sleek design (MS Surface, some Lenovos, etc)... there's nothing like an AMD
flavor XPS 13 I could pick up now, no 4K option really. That would be great
competition for Intel and potentially a better option for ultrabooks that are
so reliant on integrated graphics.

------
kvark
We've yet to see a proper business notebook with those Ryzen H series APUs. So
far, the manufactures have been eager to put it into gaming machines with a
discrete GPU on board.

~~~
neogodless
Depending on use case, I would expect the Ryzen U series to end up on thin and
light business notebooks. 8 cores, 15W TDP, expecting fantastic battery life.
But I'm still wondering when one of these OEMs will tackle Thunderbolt ports.
From what I've read it's not as easy with AMD, but certainly possible, and up
to the OEM's discretion.

~~~
neogodless
Stumbled across this tonight... this is Lenovo marketing so take it with a
grain of salt, but given what we've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised.

> 14 hours of battery

> WiFi 6

> 3.1 lbs

Under 15 mm / 0.6" thick

[https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/IdeaPad-
Slim-7-14AR...](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/IdeaPad-
Slim-7-14ARE05/p/88IPS701400)

~~~
AtlasBarfed
Aaaaand for HDMI, they just say "HDMI".

8K TVs are coming. You can get one for $2500 right now:

[https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-55-class-
led-q900-serie...](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-55-class-
led-q900-series-4320p-smart-8k-uhd-tv-with-hdr/6355633.p)

Can we PLEASE get HDMI 2.1? Laptops hardly offer HDMI 2.0.

~~~
riffraff
is there even content which is 8k? It seems to me we're barely starting to
have 4k content ATM.

~~~
keymone
I’m waiting for 16k tv so I can finally tile 4 4K streams on it.

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usefulcat
Would love to get one of these in a form factor like the NUC.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Do I have good news for you: [https://www.anandtech.com/show/15103/simplynuc-
unveils-sequo...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/15103/simplynuc-unveils-
sequoia-amd-ryzen-vseriesbased-ucff-pc)

(now we need Renoir based NUCs)

~~~
thomasfedb
Any reason these wouldn't work for desktop use? The website seems very
kiosk/signage oriented.

~~~
wtallis
Electronic signage is one of the most popular use cases for PCs with such a
small form factor. Those customers are willing to pay more of a premium than
the typical home desktop user who simply wants a smaller footprint. But right
now, AMD's focus with these chips is almost exclusively on getting them into
laptops, not SFF PCs:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACBDe1obhkM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACBDe1obhkM)

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DeathArrow
This is more of TSMC's merit. While Zen 2 certainly is a good
microarchitecture, it's not much better than Comet Lake. If Intel would have a
working 7nm process, AMD wouldn't take the lead.

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spoid
Sadly, on most Ryzen 4000 Notebooks with a U processor so far, all I see is
soldered single-channel RAM maxing out at 16GB...

I would kill for a refresh of the E595 but it's never going to happen.

------
_ph_
Anyone tried running Fedora on this machine yet? (perhaps the beta of Fedora
32?)

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2OEH8eoCRo0
The comment section on there is something else. Jesus

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macawfish
Maybe some of Intel's $3B "meet comp" budget went to paid trolls?

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wtallis
Unfortunately, most if not all of those accounts are all too genuine—often
users who have been on the site for well over a decade. PC hardware attracts
almost as much vapid tribalism as politics and pro sports.

~~~
r00fus
> PC hardware attracts almost as much vapid tribalism as politics and pro
> sports.

This seems to happen a lot where a lot of money is on the line. How much of
this long-term astroturf? Just because the account has been around for a long
time doesn't mean they can't be an "influencer".

~~~
sethhochberg
Years ago, I managed one of the larger performance computer hardware forums on
the web (its still around, albeit having changed owners a time or two since I
left).

We knew pretty well that most of the audience was kids, and knew most of the
marketing people from the major chipmakers. The brands were just starting to
wake up to the idea of community engagement at the end of the tech magazine
era / start of the Youtuber era, and as best I can tell there were no signs of
any of today's astroturfing behavior - yet all of the tribalism was there.

Its certainly more influenced now, but even back in the day everyone wanted to
justify their own purchases by insisting it was the best possible thing ever.

~~~
wtallis
> everyone wanted to justify their own purchases by insisting it was the best
> possible thing ever.

This post-purchase rationalization is a frighteningly powerful cognitive bias.
Users can get quite hostile even if you simply suggest that they should have
bought a lower-end model from the same company, and will readily lie to
themselves about their usage patterns to justify their purchase of a device
that is only superior in a few irrelevant microbenchmarks. And that's before
anything like brand loyalty gets thrown into the mix.

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Tepix
Just using 8k on the desktop would be nice

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dis-sys
really interesting time ahead! will be excited to pick up one to run WSL2.

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speedgoose
The video game benchmarks really show that it's still not powerful enough to
play less than 5 years old video games in good conditions. Old games are fine,
as always.

~~~
SubiculumCode
I assume you mean that AMD's integrated graphics still do not compete with
discrete GPUs.

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p1necone
Which isn't surprising - integrated graphics are never going to beat discrete
GPUs with their own power delivery, cooling and dedicated high speed memory.

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foota
This is not intrinsically true. Cooling and power delivery certain have it
beat, but it seems feasible to beat based on memory bandwidth. I bet a GPU
uses roughly the same order of power/cooling that say half a threadripper
does?

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eloff
No, how do you beat the wide bus memory bandwidth of a discrete GPU with the
standard dram bandwidth? Even if your processor was not competing with the GPU
for bandwidth you'd still have a small fraction of the memory bandwidth
available.

~~~
p1necone
You'd have to come up with a new architecture to make this work, but perhaps
you could have CPU/GPU on the same chip with dedicated GDDR memory lanes.

PS4/XBOne have an APU with powerful (ish) graphics - how does their memory
work?

~~~
eloff
They work with graphics memory rather than regular memory if my memory serves.
Hehe.

