
AMD takes on Intel with new Ryzen processors for laptops - qzio
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/26/16552208/amd-ryzen-5-2500u-7-2700u-laptop-processors-intel-core-i5-i7-chips-cores
======
nik736
The integrated graphics unit of those is apparently 2-3x as good as the Intel
equivalent in some benchmarks[0]. Sounds very promising overall.

[0]: [https://heise.cloudimg.io/bound/2300x1400/tjpeg.q90.webp-
los...](https://heise.cloudimg.io/bound/2300x1400/tjpeg.q90.webp-
lossy-90.foil1/_www-heise-
de_/imgs/71/2/3/0/6/6/9/8/000-ryz24-06b0d915a6a4c80f.png)

~~~
agumonkey
zen core + strong gpu would make a brilliant laptop chip

~~~
jagger27
Is the 15W TDP number for the whole package or just the CPU?

~~~
ucha
The whole package. The chip CPU + GPU is a single die.

~~~
NaliSauce
TDP can apparently be configured to be higher or lower (12-25W).

See [https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-
ryzen-7-2700u](https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-2700u)

~~~
masklinn
That's similar to what Intel does (and somewhat less flexible, Intel's cTDP on
15W parts is 7.5~25)

------
shmerl
This should make life easier for Linux users who want something better than
integrated Intel GPU. No more Optimus horrors and lack of proper PRIME
support.

~~~
c2h5oh
Not yet - there is no display support for that GPU in current Linux kernel,
nor in 4.14 that is going to be released in 1-2 weeks.

Users will have to wait for 4.15 - until mid-late January.

~~~
shmerl
You can use staging kernel from AMD meanwhile. Upstreamed one will be more
polished, but it's basically the same thing.

------
FBISurveillance
I really hope that those will be as good as their new CPUs and Apple would
consider them if they don't have ARM in the works.

It would be nice to have an octa-core in a laptop.

Also would be really nice to have Vega as well — current Radeons aren't very
good compared to 10-series nVidia chips.

~~~
baldfat
They are 200% faster. Says so in the article.

Think when Apple finally moved to Intel and th speed increase. EVEN though
Apple claimed they were the as fast if no faster before the switch.

AMD had horrible performance on laptops and they are finally able to say they
doubled the speed AKA they had a horrible product before.

"For its own part, AMD claims that the new Ryzen chips will offer dramatically
improved performance over its own last generation of laptop chips, with up to
200 percent more CPU performance (for multicore use) and up to 128 percent
better GPU performance, although AMD’s last generation of chips weren’t
exactly computational powerhouses to start."
[https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/26/16552208/...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/26/16552208/amd-
ryzen-5-2500u-7-2700u-laptop-processors-intel-core-i5-i7-chips-cores)

~~~
firethief
That's triple the speed.

~~~
baldfat
Double speed 200% = 2.00

2000 mhz * 2 is 4000 mhz

Tripple would be 300%

~~~
robhu
Yes and it's "200 percent more", the more being the key bit. More being 100% +
(200%), i.e. 300%, i.e. triple.

------
unabridged
Dear AMD, please turn on SR-IOV for your GPUs on these laptops. I want to be
able to use it in multiple VMs. This is a huge selling point for some people,
I will go with Intel because they have GVT-g enabled on all their chips.

~~~
mcny
I have a Lenovo Ideapad y510p [newegg] with a i7 4700MQ [ark]. Cost me $999
when I bought it too (got $50 back after price match with Amazon bringing cost
down to $950). Anyways, I play with VirtualBox a lot as well and would love to
know more about compatibility with Linux. I am on Fedora 26 for my base os
(that I am typing this on) now and nVidia proprietary drivers have been
nothing but trouble so I just stick with whatever the distro comes with.

I would like to know about the progress with SR_IOV as well. I've never had an
AMD processor but would definitely welcome some competition. AMD, if you're
reading having graphics drivers "mainline" in the Linux kernel would be a huge
plus. Thank you!

[newegg]
[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1683431...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834313584)
[https://archive.fo/iFkUO](https://archive.fo/iFkUO)

[ark] [https://ark.intel.com/products/75117/Intel-Core-i7-4700MQ-
Pr...](https://ark.intel.com/products/75117/Intel-Core-i7-4700MQ-
Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz)
[https://archive.fo/5SpgX](https://archive.fo/5SpgX)

------
CoolGuySteve
How are the Linux Radeon drivers these days. Last time I tried (8 years ago)
they were awful compared to the NVidia equivalent.

But now that I might be able to get a 3 pound ultrabook with decent graphics,
I'm willing to put up with a lot more inconvenience .

~~~
zanny
Linux AMD open source drivers are top notch now. Even have really good foss
OpenCL support. The only asterisk right now is that you only want to use these
new APUs / any Vega GPU on distros running kernel 4.15 or later (which will
release probably Jan of next year).

~~~
CoolGuySteve
How are the open source drivers for games? Can you render Civ 5/6 or Rocket
League?

~~~
zanny
I've been playing Civ 5 on the Mesa radeon driver since it came out on Linux
with great framerates. That being said, My FPS at 1080/high has gone from ~45
to over 90 in the last two years on the same 290 card.

~~~
kunimu
I can replicate this experience. Enemy Territiry with radron would give you
maximum 30fps in 2014 or so, forget playing with rain or on a populated
server. Now I get 90fps at 1080p comfortably.

------
throw2016
Finally laptops gets freed from 2 anemic cores. Intel will now 'suddenly be in
a position' to rush reasonably priced 4 cores to the laptop market.

AMD needs to be competitive for the health of the industry and consumers.
There is little doubt now Intel was holding the market back.

We have seen similar stagnation on desktops with any slight step magnified by
the tech press desperate for content. And fortunately AMD have an efficient
architecture with Ryzen.

~~~
seabrookmx
I mentioned this above: Intel already can. They released quad-core "U-series"
parts a month or two ago.

~~~
dingo_bat
Which proves what OP said about Intel holding back innovation.

------
Simulacra
I've always had a soft spot for AMD, the rebel, the chief rival to the
behemoth Intel. I'm glad for this move, and I hope they create meaningful
competition.

------
darklajid
I really want a laptop with one of these, but all announced models so far seem
to be flawed (as in, just short of perfect).

Envy x360 seems the most promising, but doesn't seem to come with the Ryzen 7
2700U. So probably not.

Ideapad 720S has memory limitations (no dual channel support) and is straight
out.

Swift 3 seems to be the closest to what I want - but .. limited to 8GB :-/

Given that I'm currently, right now, in the market for a laptop, I guess I've
got to skip AMD for now.

------
chx
Dear Lenovo: we would like this chip with a seven row keyboard very, very
much. A485 perhaps?

~~~
pimeys
Let's wait for the 30th Anniversary Edition. Then it would be the perfect time
anyways for me to get a new laptop.

~~~
chx
I'd love to have the 7 row on laptops which are not that special. I did buy
the T25, mind you.

~~~
pimeys
Me too. And I do love it!

------
qzio
I really hope lenvo makes a x1 with a ryzen option and good linux support.
Would be perfect as a developer laptop.

------
kevingadd
Desktop Ryzen still suffers with thermal/power efficiency issues compared to
desktop Intel cores, so I wonder if they've managed to address that issue for
these mobile cores. If not, I wonder how customers will feel about paying a
battery life tax for better performance...

Incidentally, AMD GPUs have been at a disadvantage compared to NVIDIA's in the
power management area for a while, as well. Which is unfortunate because
they're very good cores with (arguably) a better feature set for
compute/rasterization than NVIDIA's. Intel seems to have the market for low-
power GPUs on PC sewn up as well. If AMD manages to make improvements here
they could put out a very compelling product, if only because you wouldn't
need GPU-switching in your laptop (with all the hassle that entails) and it'd
be easier to substitute a laptop for your desktop when you do compute-heavy
work.

For example, [https://www.anandtech.com/show/11658/the-amd-
ryzen-3-1300x-r...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/11658/the-amd-
ryzen-3-1300x-ryzen-3-1200-cpu-review/16) shows worse idle power draw and
worse load power draw for Ryzen. In desktop cases this gap doesn't matter as
long as you have a good heatsink+fan but it will map to worse battery life and
worse noise/thermals in a laptop. (An extra thirty watts in total system draw
under load can add up on your utility bill, though.)

Power draw on AMD's GPUs is not great either, unfortunately:
[https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-
vega-...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/11717/the-amd-radeon-rx-
vega-64-and-56-review/19) And past GPUs they've released also had issues with
drawing more power over the PCIe slot than it was rated for (and exceeding
their TDP in general, I believe).

~~~
saas_co_de
Ryzen 3 1200, 4 core 3.1/3.4Ghz vs. i5-7400 3.0/3.5Ghz the Ryzen uses .12
watts more at idle and 2.19 watts more at all cores full load.

That is a pretty small (<5%) gap.

~~~
mrchicity
5% is a lot these days, and that Intel CPU will beat Ryzen clock-for-clock as
well. Laptop manufacturers are fighting over every percentage point of gains
these days, not trying to move backwards. People want to see all day battery
life with reasonably good performance.

I like AMD and want more competition for Intel. If you have a use that scales
across many cores, AMD is a great value for workstations. Their new server
lineup is pretty compelling too. But if they want to win in mobile they need
to be better on power and thermals even for normal users who won't use the
iGPU's capabilities heavily.

~~~
saas_co_de
AMD's game is never about "winning" \- that is not even considered as a
possibility. Surviving and getting 10-20% marketshare is a home run for them.

------
solomatov
I love that we finally can have a 4 cores on ultrathin laptop.

~~~
seabrookmx
We already could. Intel released quad-core "U-series" parts a month or two
ago.

------
fit2rule
IF someone comes out with a unibody laptop with a Ryzen in it, I'm fully in.
It'll easily replace my current macBook fleet.. (nb: eyes the GPD Pocket and
its revisions..)

~~~
mromanuk
I’ve bought a Ryzen 5 for a home server, but sadly is awfully unstable.
Apparently there is a bug in the Ryzen family. I’m using it with Freenas 11
(FreeBSD) and the system is having horrible random freezes with black screen.
There are some threads talking about same issues, this make me lose faith in
AMD, and going back to Intel.

~~~
terminalcommand
Have you tried disabling SMT? And have you tried installing the latest
microcode update? AMD has been having problems for a while, but I think they
ought to have been fixed by now.

I, myself was thinking to acquire a Ryzen 5 1600 for a high performance
programming desktop. I was thinking of running FreeBSD, it's sad to hear that
it's glitchy.

~~~
ahartmetz
Disabling SMT only reduces the frequency of the segfault bug occurring. AFAIK
it does nothing for random whole machine freezes, for which there is a
reliable workaround (other post of mine).

------
ryzenmac
It doesn't seem like it supports LPDDR4, so I don't think they are competitive
for the "macbook pro" market.

~~~
wmf
Yep, AMD lacks the "courage" to limit customers to 16 GB of RAM.

~~~
ryzenmac
LPDDR4 supports more than 16GB of RAM.

~~~
desireco42
That is what he is saying

------
dm319
Hopefully the next generation Thinkpad ?A485 will have these chips - would be
the ideal linux coders laptop.

------
pmoriarty
Are these just as buggy as the desktop ones?

~~~
sddfd
What are you referring to? Provide some links!

~~~
pmoriarty
_" 50+ Segmentation Faults per Hour: Continuing to Stress Ryzen"_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936468)

[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-
seg...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ryzen-segv-
continues)

~~~
mrchicity
This is a known issue that only affects early revisions of Ryzen CPUs under
specific workloads, so it's unlikely to appear in new ones like the mobile
Ryzen. If you're affected, AMD will RMA your chip for free.

And AMD isn't the only manufacturer to have such issues. Intel had a bug in
Skylake where it would crash under heavy load with Hyperthreading enabled.
Modern CPUs are complicated beasts.

~~~
unwind
How do you RMA the CPU in a laptop though, I would expect it to be soldered
in?

I guess through the manufacturer who gets to rework the main board ... gah how
annoying that must be. I can easily imagine such a process taking weeks.

I hope you're right. :)

------
turblety
Unfortunately anyone who takes their security or privacy seriously will be
totally unable to use this. Every AMD chip contains a likely backdoored system
called AMD Secure Processor (formerly “Platform Security Processor” or “PSP”)
[1].

This separate processor contains closed source, proprietary binaries that have
complete and unrestricted access to the host. Despite a large petition for AMD
to opensource this, they refused in the end. [2][3]

Anyone running AMD chipsets have a completely separate and unaccessible
operating system running on their computer that they can not control nor know
exactly what it's doing. [4]

Intel has the same sort of system with it's Intel Management Engine (known as
Intel ME) that even the NSA didn't want to have running on their own
computers. [5]

[1] [http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-
technologies/s...](http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-
technologies/security)

[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5z4phx/petition_fo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/5z4phx/petition_for_amd_to_opensource_the_psp_backdoor/)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6msujx/what_happened_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6msujx/what_happened_to_the_open_source_the_security/)

[4] [https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd](https://libreboot.org/faq.html#amd)

[5]
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/29/intel_management_en...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/29/intel_management_engine_can_be_disabled/)

~~~
kbhn
> Unfortunately anyone who takes their security or privacy seriously will be
> totally unable to use this. Every AMD chip contains a likely backdoored
> system called AMD Secure Processor

This is fear mongering to the extreme. Intel has the _exact_ same type of
system embedded in their processors called Intel Management Engine. You can't
escape this problem by buying Intel.

I notice you provided a lot of sources, but none for the claim "a likely
backdoored system". Your post reads like something a bad Intel astroturfing
shill would say.

~~~
Kliment
The Intel one has a known technique to disable the ME, the AMD one does not
(for the moment).

~~~
m45t3r
However, disabling it is not trivial, needing to open your laptop and solding
skills, also special equipment to read/write modified firmware.

~~~
Kliment
You don't need soldering skills (at least for the device I use), but I agree
it's not trivial. However, a nontrivial fix is still a significant improvement
over a nonexistent one.

