AMD’s 7nm Ryzen 4000 laptop processors are finally here

Despite AMD’s currently abysmal laptop marketshare, the company claims a lot of historical firsts over the past 10 years.

AMD

Despite AMD’s currently abysmal laptop marketshare, the company claims a lot of historical firsts over the past 10 years. AMD

AMD’s U-series are lower-power profile, integrated graphics parts. H-series are discrete CPU with higher TDP. Pro series isn’t available yet, but it targets enterprise with additional security features.

AMD

AMD’s U-series are lower-power profile, integrated graphics parts. H-series are discrete CPU with higher TDP. Pro series isn’t available yet, but it targets enterprise with additional security features. AMD

AMD hs been on top with integrated graphics for a while now—but this year is the first time AMD has achieved single-thread parity.

AMD

AMD hs been on top with integrated graphics for a while now—but this year is the first time AMD has achieved single-thread parity. AMD

AMD’s U-series are lower-power profile, integrated graphics parts. H-series are discrete CPU with higher TDP. Pro series isn’t available yet, but it targets enterprise with additional security features. AMD

AMD hs been on top with integrated graphics for a while now—but this year is the first time AMD has achieved single-thread parity. AMD

AMD has scored big 7nm performance wins over the last few months with its Ryzen 3000-series desktop CPUs, Threadripper 3000-series HEDT CPUs, and Epyc Rome server CPUs—and the newest addition to the family, the Ryzen Mobile 4000 series, looks like it will continue in the same vein.

No one should be surprised that the Ryzen Mobile 4000—which brings AMD’s Zen 2 7nm architecture to the laptop world—outperforms Intel’s laptop CPU offerings on multi-threaded performance or graphics performance. Even single-threaded performance—which has finally achieved par—isn’t the big stumbling block we’ve been waiting to see if AMD could overcome.

The egregious black mark against AMD’s mobile line over the last year or two hasn’t been about performance at all—at first glance, it’s about battery life. At a second, closer look, it’s even more about OEM integration. We’re pleased to see that AMD has taken giant strides to improve both issues with this year’s mobile CPU lineup.

Getting serious attention from OEMs

AMD’s last generation of laptop CPUs was already pretty good—problem is, the CPUs were mostly shoveled into bottom-tier, zero-effort designs by OEMs aiming for the “cheapest laptop” buyers only.

AMD

AMD’s last generation of laptop CPUs was already pretty good—problem is, the CPUs were mostly shoveled into bottom-tier, zero-effort designs by OEMs aiming for the “cheapest laptop” buyers only. AMD

The biggest problem with the last generation of mobile Ryzen wasn’t the CPU—it was lackadaisical integration efforts. AMD is working to solve that with Mobile Ryzen 4000.

AMD

The biggest problem with the last generation of mobile Ryzen wasn’t the CPU—it was lackadaisical integration efforts. AMD is working to solve that with Mobile Ryzen 4000. AMD

AMD is committing to deep integration with partner OEMs to ensure no more… “underengineered” designs make it through the door.

AMD

AMD is committing to deep integration with partner OEMs to ensure no more… “underengineered” designs make it through the door. AMD

The biggest problem with the last generation of mobile Ryzen wasn’t the CPU—it was lackadaisical integration efforts. AMD is working to solve that with Mobile Ryzen 4000. AMD

AMD is committing to deep integration with partner OEMs to ensure no more… “underengineered” designs make it through the door. AMD

AMD seems to have finally gotten laptop OEMs to pay real attention to them, with more than 100 designs expected in 2020.

AMD

We saw a lot of the Yoga Slim 7 throughout Tech Day. It’s an extremely slender, lightweight system—reminiscent of a 14-inch Chromebook.

AMD

The Yoga Slim 7, which was featured throughout the presentations at AMD’s tech day, looks like it will provide oodles of power for a sub-$1K laptop.

AMD

Although last year’s Ryzen Mobile 3000 line didn’t use AMD’s newest Zen 2 architecture or 7nm process size, it was still a solid match for its Intel competition on paper. Unfortunately, a good mobile CPU isn’t enough to make a good laptop. Despite raw CPU performance that ranged from “solid competition” to “outright winner” compared to Intel designs, most Ryzen 3000 laptops had poor battery life, poor thermal design, and mediocre system performance at best due to thermal throttling.

The problem is that laptop OEMs weren’t taking the Ryzen Mobile 3000 seriously. They generally lavished attention to detail on Intel-powered designs for higher-end laptops while shoveling Ryzen CPUs into generic designs aimed at cost-is-the-only-object buyers.

Hardware integration isn’t a really crucial factor with desktops or even servers. They can afford to devote extra space, weight, and power to offset minor inefficiencies—but in a laptop, any sacrifice in design and integration quality translates to obvious, user-visible penalties.

The most common complaint with Ryzen 3000 laptops is poor battery life. But performance takes a hit from sub-par integration work as well. Modern laptop designs generally spec a TDP (Thermal Design Power) budget for cooling that’s insufficient to handle the total heat the system’s components can produce when running flat-out for long periods.

Since the system can’t handle full system load for long periods, it throttles performance on the components as necessary to avoiding cooking them in their own waste heat. This is why poor laptop design results in poor performance—a less-efficient system generates more heat, exceeds the TDP budget more quickly, and the system must slow itself down as a result.

This year, it seems clear that AMD has gotten OEMs’ attention and has them on board with producing detailed and fully integrated Ryzen 4000 system designs. AMD had a Lenovo executive take the stage to talk about the upcoming Yoga Slim 7, an ultrathin 14-inch laptop with high performance and long battery life—but Lenovo is unlikely to be the only OEM paying attention.

Although AMD is being cagey for the moment about exactly who is or isn’t on board, the company specifically talked about partnerships with Microsoft and Google as well as new design certification and continuous validation programs aimed at fixing any problems with poor integration going forward.

Battery life

Ryzen 4000 makes new low-power states available and makes transitions to and from low-power states faster.

AMD

Ryzen 4000 makes new low-power states available and makes transitions to and from low-power states faster. AMD

AMD claims twice the instructions per watt, with roughly half the improvement coming from the die shrink to 7nm.

AMD

AMD claims twice the instructions per watt, with roughly half the improvement coming from the die shrink to 7nm. AMD

Reducing minimum voltage, decreasing power supplies for I/O and PHYs, and drastically reducing CPUOFF latency all contribute to a more efficient system-on-chip.

AMD

Reducing minimum voltage, decreasing power supplies for I/O and PHYs, and drastically reducing CPUOFF latency all contribute to a more efficient system-on-chip. AMD

AMD claims twice the instructions per watt, with roughly half the improvement coming from the die shrink to 7nm. AMD

Reducing minimum voltage, decreasing power supplies for I/O and PHYs, and drastically reducing CPUOFF latency all contribute to a more efficient system-on-chip. AMD

Ryzen 4000 is twice as efficient running graphics-creation workloads as prior generations. (It’s still slightly less efficient here than the newest Intel designs—but makes up for the shortfall elsewhere.)

AMD

Infinity Fabric interconnects in the new SoCs are redesigned to offer better memory bandwidth and lower power consumption than prior Ryzen Mobile CPUs.

AMD

The new “Renoir” design adheres to the latest ACPI power state definition, offering three different Cstates and accepting OS guidance to intelligently select the proper power condition for a given workload.

AMD

Vega onboard graphics are also greatly improved in power efficiency. AMD attributes 75% of the gains to the 7nm process shrink.

AMD

Even the audio controller contributes to overall power efficiency. Renoir offers power-efficient wake on voice and significantly lower CPU power consumption when playing audio or video on applications supporting Low Power Audio Playback (LPAP).

AMD

We went into AMD’s Tech Day—the press-invite-only launch for the Ryzen Mobile 4000 line—excited about the potential performance to be found in the new 7nm design. But we had real concerns about battery life. To overcome user dissatisfaction with earlier AMD powered laptops, the company needed both to improve OEM and OS vendor-integration efforts and improve the direct hardware efficiency in its own designs significantly.

Happily, AMD seems to have done exactly that. Both the general presentations and a specific breakout on power and thermal efficiency made very clear that AMD took this aspect of the Ryzen Mobile 4000 very seriously. The company claims overall System-on-Chip power reduction of 20 percent and a multi-threaded, heavy-load performance-per-watt twice that of earlier designs.

Shrinking die size from 12nm to 7nm alone might account for as much as half of the increase in efficiency, but the rest comes from significant design improvements. In particular, the Renoir design incorporates the newest ACPI power-state model—which includes three separate low-power c-states to shut down portions of the CPU, instead of the earlier design’s one.

In this graph we can see how much more time Ryzen 3000 spends jogging back and forth between higher- and lower-power states while launching PCMark.

AMD

In this graph we can see how much more time Ryzen 3000 spends jogging back and forth between higher- and lower-power states while launching PCMark. AMD

Better management of power states and faster transitions between them translate into a 59% power-consumption decrease when launching this application.

AMD

Better management of power states and faster transitions between them translate into a 59% power-consumption decrease when launching this application. AMD

Both latency (how rapidly the CPU can move in and out of C-states) and intelligent management are necessary to get the best results.

AMD

Both latency (how rapidly the CPU can move in and out of C-states) and intelligent management are necessary to get the best results. AMD

Better management of power states and faster transitions between them translate into a 59% power-consumption decrease when launching this application. AMD

Both latency (how rapidly the CPU can move in and out of C-states) and intelligent management are necessary to get the best results. AMD

Good power management requires the system to distinguish between multiple consumers—particularly, CPU power vs. discrete GPU power needs.

AMD

The hardware itself is limited to fairly crude guesses about what’s coming up in terms of workload and how to optimize for it. The operating system is in a much better position to judge and inform the hardware accordingly.

AMD

Renoir also adds new OS hinting features. Operating systems supporting the new ACPI model—including both Windows and Linux—can inform the CPU what performance levels are expected for upcoming workloads and how best to choose between higher frequencies and lower power draw.

Finally, entry and exit latency from the lower-power C-states is drastically improved, allowing the CPU to spend more time in lower-power idle modes, with less impact on user-perceived task latency.

AMD went to serious lengths to explain both the how and why of the way it measures battery life in laptops.

AMD

AMD went to serious lengths to explain both the how and why of the way it measures battery life in laptops. AMD

Battery life is one of the primary focuses of Intel’s Project Athena laptops… but AMD doesn’t think MobileMark14 is a very good real-world test.

AMD

Battery life is one of the primary focuses of Intel’s Project Athena laptops… but AMD doesn’t think MobileMark14 is a very good real-world test. AMD

AMD tested a Dell XPS 13 with an i7-1065 G7 using its own, more detailed set of battery life tests.

AMD

AMD tested a Dell XPS 13 with an i7-1065 G7 using its own, more detailed set of battery life tests. AMD

Battery life is one of the primary focuses of Intel’s Project Athena laptops… but AMD doesn’t think MobileMark14 is a very good real-world test. AMD

AMD tested a Dell XPS 13 with an i7-1065 G7 using its own, more detailed set of battery life tests. AMD

We appreciate the level of detail AMD goes into with these comparisons. The XPS 13’s 49.985WHr battery is normalized to capacity equivalence with the Yoga Slim 7’s 60.7 WHr battery here.

AMD

Using AMD’s more rigorous “Blended battery life” estimate, the Yoga Slim 7 gets 2.4 hours of additional battery life compared to the i7-powered XPS 13.

AMD

With all this architecture explanation done, we can look at a battery-life analysis comparing two real-world systems: the Ryzen 4800U-powered Lenovo Yoga Slim 7, and an Ice Lake i7-1065G7-equipped Dell XPS 13 two-in-one.

Although the analysis here is entirely AMD’s and has not been third-party verified, we think it’s worth pointing out how careful the company has been to provide realistic assessments of its earlier Zen 2 parts. We would also like to highlight the extreme, thorough detail into which AMD goes to explain both how and why it measures battery life the way it does.

Although there is a third-party benchmark aimed at evaluating mobile battery life—MobileMark14—AMD doesn’t like it, finding it too lenient. Instead, AMD created a “blended battery life” routine that involves testing battery life for multiple workloads individually, then averaging them together according to a ratio designed to model “a day in the life of a typical end user.”

We like the approach to real-world use cases, and we like the fact that AMD published its results for each individual use case, not just the blended average, even more. This isn’t a sales-room powder-puff chart; we can see the places where Ice Lake has a leg up on Ryzen 4000 as well as the clear wins for Team Red.

AMD even offers a third column, normalizing results for battery capacity difference between the Yoga and the XPS 13—a change that is not to AMD’s favor, since the Lenovo’s battery capacity is 20 percent higher than the Dell’s.

Ultimately, AMD’s Ryzen 4000 looks like it will provide more active use time for typical users, with the Ice Lake series offering longer idle times and somewhat longer runtime for heavy content creation.

After normalizing the Lenovo and Dell designs for battery capacity, the Ryzen had higher runtimes for productivity, Web browsing, and gaming (as measured by PCMark 10 and 3DMark Time Spy). Intel’s i7-1065G7 had higher runtimes for Cinebench R20, Windows Idle, and Windows Connected Standby.

Performance

Ryzen 7 4000 U-series offers eight cores, with 16 threads on the 4800U model and eight on the 4700U.

AMD

Ryzen 7 4000 U-series offers eight cores, with 16 threads on the 4800U model and eight on the 4700U. AMD

We like these “pentagraph” performance charts. They’re a particularly concise way of getting the point across that “we’re better all the way around.”

AMD

We like these “pentagraph” performance charts. They’re a particularly concise way of getting the point across that “we’re better all the way around.” AMD

The Ryzen 5 4000 U-series offers six CPU cores, with 12 threads on the 4600U and six on the 4500U.

AMD

The Ryzen 5 4000 U-series offers six CPU cores, with 12 threads on the 4600U and six on the 4500U. AMD

We like these “pentagraph” performance charts. They’re a particularly concise way of getting the point across that “we’re better all the way around.” AMD

The Ryzen 5 4000 U-series offers six CPU cores, with 12 threads on the 4600U and six on the 4500U. AMD

Ryzen 5 beats Intel’s i5—both Comet Lake and Ice Lake—just as handily as Ryzen 7 beat the i7 CPUs.

AMD

There’s only one CPU in the Ryzen 3 4000 lineup; the 4300U offers four cores and no hyperthreading.

AMD

It’s no surprise that AMD dominates again in the budget category. There is no Comet Lake i3, so we just have the one comparison to Ice Lake here.

AMD

Ryzen 4000 H-series offers 8 cores and 16 threads for Ryzen 9 and 7, or 6 cores and 12 threads for Ryzen 5. All have significantly higher TDP than the U-series.

AMD

AMD didn’t offer pentagraphs or overall comparison charts for the H-series, which were only covered in the gaming breakout session. Instead, AMD went straight for the throat with 3DMark and Cinebench scores only.

AMD

As much as we’d have liked to see another pentagraph for consistency, with clear wins in both 3DMark and Cinebench, it seems clear there are no wins here for Comet Lake’s i7 or i9 CPUs.

AMD

Last but not least, the entire Ryzen 4000 line’s performance levels look great. Although there were lots of comparisons demonstrating generation-on-generation improvement, we think most readers will want to dive straight into the Team-Red-on-Team-Blue comparisons.

We’re not sure there’s much point in dragging this one out—AMD wins the performance crown handily. If we take AMD at its word—which has been trustworthy so far—Ryzen Mobile 4000 continues the same Zen 2 story already told with Ryzen 3000 desktop CPUs, Threadripper 3000 workstation CPUs, and Epyc Rome server CPUs.

It doesn’t much matter whether you’re comparing Ryzen 7 to i7, Ryzen 5 to i5, or Ryzen 3 to i3. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re comparing Ryzen 4000 U-series to Ice Lake or Comet Lake, or comparing Ryzen 4000 H-series to Comet Lake’s i9.