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 ESTLow Power Performance
Truth be told, I didn’t go into this review with low power testing in mind. These sorts of laptops, while capable of driving high performance on the go, are essentially expected to be connected to the power socket when performance is needed. Even the best ultraportables struggle for battery life when everything is whirring at full tilt. Nonetheless, after my own experiences of 3 hours of gaming on power with a Matebook X Pro and a high screen brightness, it is a genuine use case.
For these tests, the settings and software are the same as normal, but the only change is that the power cable has been removed and the power setting in Windows has been moved to ‘Best Battery Life’. We’re still in the Recommended Power Plan and not the Battery Saver Plan. What this does is force the OS and system to manage its power appropriately between CPU and GPU. In these circumstances being able to distribute the power where it is needed most can be a very critical factor in getting a project finished, or having a game that is playable.
Our tests here, due to time, are the following:
- Civilization 6, 1080p MSAA 8x, AI Test (On Battery, Battery Saver)
- Borderlands 3, 1080p Medium (On Battery, Battery Saver)
- Counter Strike Source, 1080p Max (On Battery, Battery Saver)
So previously Intel had a very slight advantage in AI turn time here, but as we move to a power limited scenario, AMD takes a more substantial lead – over 10%.
Where we had a small 5% win for AMD in the full power scenario, the gap is a bit bigger percentage wise for AMD in the low power scenario. It is still under 30 FPS, which is probably unplayable for BL3.
Now CSS is a little odd. When I’m in Battery Saver mode but plugged in, I get the full power FPS value. But the minute I take it out, on the Razer Blade, something goes a bit mental and we end up being limited to 60 FPS. V-Sync is disabled in every setting I think of, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a way of getting off of 60 FPS.
Ultimately in every scenario, in a few small tests, where Intel might have been ahead on wall power, AMD pulls ahead on limited power.
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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.