
AMD’s 7nm Ryzen 4000 laptop processors - t4h4
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/amds-7nm-ryzen-4000-laptop-processors-are-finally-here/
======
Roritharr
So Anandtech has this to say about Thunderbolt 3 support:

"Display support for the CPUs allows for two 4K monitors through DisplayPort
over Type-C, an additional 4K monitor if Thunderbolt is used, and a fourth
monitor if USB 4.0 used. AMD has designed Renoir to not need additional chips
to detect which way a Type-C is connected – that is all handled on die. With
the display and USB support, the processor allows for concurrent USB 3.2 and
DisplayPort use, with the peak DP v1.4 8.1G HBR3 standard in play using
display stream compression (DSC)."

Which begs the question what does in-built mean? The Showcase Notebook Lenovo
Yoga Slim 7 does not include USB 4 or Thunderbolt 3 so these modes will
probably need additional chips.

...i want this 8-core chip with 32GB of LPDDR4X in a 13" Notebook that has 2
Thunderbolt 3 Ports and a matte Full-HD Touchscreen.

~~~
DiabloD3
No, you want the _next_ generation, for the same reason: Thunderbolt is now
officially dead, it has been absorbed into the official USB4 standard.

There is _very_ unclear support for existing Thunderbolt-over-Type-C devices
under USB4, and it is likely your devices will stop working.

Please wait until USB4 and USB4-based solutions start shipping before you
start adopting it, else you're going to be stuck with a bunch of devices that
are no longer being supported, or cannot be cross-supported across Thunderbolt
3 and USB4 variants.

~~~
Roritharr
I already have a bunch of TB3 Docks in our company, so ditching them would
really be painful and a reason to stick to Intel.

~~~
DiabloD3
Intel's own version of their USB4 controller _might not support it either_.

Absolutely nobody I know has been able to get a straight answer out of anyone;
not Intel, not the USB IF, not other members of the USB IF, on if existing
Thunderbolt 3 devices will work on USB4 hosts.

And it will be a complete and absolute shitshow if it doesn't, because Type-C
has swindled us into thinking Type-C is just Type-C.

------
storrgie
It'd just be nice if integrators like lenovo wouldn't nerf things like
displays. It looks like their lineup for AMD mobile graphics is going to be
significantly different than the Intel counterparts.

~~~
macawfish
For real! What's up with the lack of 2-in-1 AMD x13? I have an artist friend
who needs a new laptop and I'm telling him to wait for Ryzen 4000 laptops. Am
I supposed to tell him to get a gaming laptop or something?

These recent Intel laptops often have really dicey real-time performance
because of how aggressively their clock speeds are controlled.

For someone who does mixed multimedia work, a Ryzen 4000 2-in-1 would be
amazing. All those cores are perfect for real-time audio work, rendering and
3d stuff.

~~~
fstephany
The announced Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 might tick the right boxes.

~~~
macawfish
Oh wow, that one is so close! Just needs some more memory...

edit: at first I read that this would have 8 GB RAM, but now I'm reading that
you can get up to 16 GB, which I think would be adequate for some basic
multimedia work.

edit 2: wait I'm confused, according to the announcement, the AMD version is
set at 8 GB of RAM.

[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)

------
close04
I'm not sure if my next laptop purchase is going to be an AMD one because I
haven't got enough data yet, specs, benchmarks, etc. But I know one thing for
sure, I will exclude from my shortlist any OEM that does _not_ have a serious
AMD based lineup. If they only have 1-2 models, or only in the low cost
segment just to tick a box, I will be looking at other brands.

I can't help but remember Intel's practices in the past. So I'll vote with my
wallet and go with OEMs that give both Intel and AMD an equal chance.
Hopefully if enough people do that OEMs will find any backroom dealings less
attractive.

~~~
bsdubernerd
In my case, I'm in the need of a new laptop this year, and I'm explicitly
waiting for an AMD Ryzen.

I don't even care about the performance to be honest, I'm sure it will be
adequate and I simply don't want Intel anymore.

With all the mitigations applied, I've lost the performance gain of the last
two Intel laptop generations I had.

The integrated intel gpu is ok performance-wise, but being on linux I'm also
tired of their development model: there's a fresh new driver/engine being
developed every year, and it always buggy. It's true that intel always gets
the latest kernel features first, but by the time is stable and it _works_, it
gets deprecated in favor of a new buggy one. Way to go!

I've been using top-of-the-line lenovo laptops for a decade now. This has been
the same every year, year after year, and I'm tired.

~~~
richajak
I would suggest to get another Thinkpad as other brands may not not be tweaked
to Thinkpad loyal customers. For me, I always find my Thinkpad is quiet and
cool during heavy workload.

As for Ryzen, I just bought their budget laptop, E485 (with Ryzen
2200u+SSD+FHD screen) last year. I was waiting patiently for Thinkpad deal to
come, it was worth to wait, as my aging SL410 was still working. It has been
matching my expectation so far: affordable, snappy enough, and good battery.

As for Thinkpad models, I find that their budget ones are sufficient for my
startup and personal usage, as I do not use enterprise-level features, like
those in T series (that I used during my corporate lives).

~~~
bsdubernerd
Although thinkpads work fine, I attribute this due to the number of developers
using them, definitely not because Lenovo is spending _ANY_ money to make it
work. This is not how it's supposed to be working. There are a few big issues
that are making me reconsider them entirely.

You cannot buy a Lenovo without a Windows license. This is minor considering
the price I'm usually going for, but since I don't use it at all, I consider
it a microsoft tax.

Their "computrace" bios feature is still there in every new laptop.

With skylake, the last edition of the Yoga and X1 Carbon couldn't do S3 sleep
by default anymore. For no other reason than to force windows use S2Idle. It
requires a quite annoying work-around on linux to force S3, and only ~6 months
ago we finally got a bios patch to re-enable S3...

The temperature throttling defaults are different from linux to windows,
causing linux to throttle much more aggressively than needed on skylake. This
is also caused by some bios issue which you can work-around with msr
registers, but again... why?

I overall like the hardware. I'm quite fond of the built-in wacom pen too. I
have minor quibs about the keyboard (QC issues) and screen (all TP I had in
the last 5 years tend to develop bright spots in the backlight), but overall
it's hard to find something similar. The dell XPS developer line is the only
alternative I would be considering, and mostly due to their linux offering.

------
abrowne
They mention Linux at least once in the article. That's always good to see.

~~~
kemotep
Patches for Renoir based APU's appeared in kernel 5.4[0]. Looks like by the
time these launch they will have out of the box Linux support which is huge
compared to how Raven Ridge launched.

[0]:[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-
Reno...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Renoir-APU-
Linux)

~~~
snvzz
And 5.4 is a LTS kernel. They were just in time apparently.

------
akvadrako
A better article here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
All the current articles are terrible, because none of them have independent
benchmarks. Apparently, no-one got review units in time because of all the
disruption, but AMD went ahead with dropping the embargo anyway.

~~~
lonelappde
It's a laptop chip. Due to thermal throttling variability and all the
ergonomic factors, reviews only make sense in the context of a whole retail
laptop you can buy. You aren't going to buy a laptop and then choose your chip
separately.

~~~
BubRoss
This is a really good point. Modern CPUs remind me of home internet with
maximum speeds advertised even though pragmatically it isn't anywhere close to
what people will get. Laptops, Intel NUCs, AMD desktop APUs, etc. all take a
huge amount of BIOS tweaking at least to make them run hotter before they
throttle, use less power, and possibly disable temporary clock speed boosts
that heat up the CPU too much and make it throttle. Anything in a small
enclosure seems to be an exercise in optimizing heat.

More airflow, lower max clocks and higher throttling temperatures make a
massive difference on the set ups I've worked with.

------
holtalanm
my laptop is a couple years old at this point, but I've been extremely happy
with my ryzen 2500U HP Envy 15z.

when i replace this eventually, I'll be looking at AMD again, more than
likely. Really solid.

------
tedunangst
None of these battery benchmarks seem to normalize for work per unit time. 2.0
hours of cinebench rendering on one cpu and 2.5 hours on another cpu can't
really be compared unless you know how many frames were rendered.

------
gtm1260
Is there any chance Dell releases and AMD XPS 13?

~~~
sfshaw
I would be very interested in this as well but I fear Intel and Dell have some
kind of exclusivity agreement for our beloved product line. In the meantime
we'll all just switch to Zen2 ThinkPads.

------
leptoniscool
Awesome, Moore's law is back on track

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kissiel
Except they're actually not. I would love to buy one, but there is no one
laptop with 4000 series in shops here, in EU.

~~~
Zenst
Yes the whole supply chain is somewhat having a bumpy time, it will get there
in the end.

But had a quick look from the UK and plenty here for next day delivery.

Even some fancy ones like: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zephyrus-GA401IV-GeForce-
Graphics-W...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zephyrus-GA401IV-GeForce-Graphics-
Windows/dp/B084N16YTY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ryzen+4000&qid=1584449576&s=computers&sr=1-2)

So technically they are available in the EU, just a slowly transitioning
supply due to logistical human malware factors comming into play.

~~~
kissiel
For the laptop you linked it says: This item will be released on April 16,
2020. Which considering human malware may be May+

~~~
Zenst
Oh yes, defo saw maybe that or another one next day delivery - but may be case
of bad listening and got corrected.

Did try look for the other listing I saw but not showing now, so hmmm.

