5 ms·

AMD’s 7nm Ryzen 4000 laptop processors

155 points by t4h4 7y ago

akvadrako 7y ago
A better article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598
- Tuna-Fish 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      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.
  - tinodotim 7y ago
    > but AMD went ahead with dropping the embargo anyway. Isn't it more like AMD dropped the embargo (partially) because Lenovo, ASUS and others wanted to get their devices out?
storrgie 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    The announced Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 might tick the right boxes.
    - macawfish 7y ago
      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-7-14ARE05/p/88IPS701400 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/IdeaPad-Slim-7-14AR...
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Agreed! I got a MacBook for work, and the Retina display is incredible. I want a Linux AMD laptop with a 2k/4k display. My E485 with 2700U and 1080p matte will have to do for personal work, for now.
  - 7y ago
close04 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - bestham 7y ago
    Where can I read more about these kernel / driver related regressions of each revision?
    - bsdubernerd 7y ago
      These are deaths by a 1000 papercuts, caused by a combination of kernel/kms drivers, xorg & dri. Reporting these bugs is an issue by itself, since it's really non-trivial to understand where some of these problems are and how to report them. One example I like to give is how for the better part of 2018, xorg+kms with (if I remember correctly) broadwell was new, caused random tearing issues that required to use the legacy i915 driver. The i915 had also other issues at the same time, causing blits in xrender to copy dirty areas of memory. Different issues popped up depending if you were daring enough to switch the dri version, glamour and kernel version. This got eventually resolved.. but by the time I switched to haswell. Things got better on the kms front, until I realized I couldn't rotate the screen anymore. When this got resolved, the driver couldn't restore the screen after dpms blanking... This one is fixed on skylake, but on haswell still isn't. ... and so on and so forth. All this was on the lenovo x1 carbon (various versions), then on the x1 yoga (1st, and I'm now on the 3rd version).
kissiel 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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-Windows/dp/B084N16YTY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ryzen+4000&qid=1584449576&s=computers&sr=1-2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zephyrus-GA401IV-GeForce-Graphics-W... So technically they are available in the EU, just a slowly transitioning supply due to logistical human malware factors comming into play.
  - kissiel 7y ago
    For the laptop you linked it says: This item will be released on April 16, 2020. Which considering human malware may be May+
    - Zenst 7y ago
      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.
abrowne 7y ago
They mention Linux at least once in the article. That's always good to see.
- kemotep 7y ago
  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-Renoir-APU-Linux https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Reno...
  - snvzz 7y ago
    And 5.4 is a LTS kernel. They were just in time apparently.
holtalanm 7y ago
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.
Roritharr 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      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.
leptoniscool 7y ago
Awesome, Moore's law is back on track
gtm1260 7y ago
Is there any chance Dell releases and AMD XPS 13?
- sfshaw 7y ago
  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.
tedunangst 7y ago
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.

155 points by t4h4 7y ago

akvadrako 7y ago

A better article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22599598

Tuna-Fish 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
- tinodotim 7y ago
  > but AMD went ahead with dropping the embargo anyway. Isn't it more like AMD dropped the embargo (partially) because Lenovo, ASUS and others wanted to get their devices out?

storrgie 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  The announced Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 might tick the right boxes.
  - macawfish 7y ago
    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-7-14ARE05/p/88IPS701400 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/coming-soon/IdeaPad-Slim-7-14AR...
unethical_ban 7y ago
Agreed! I got a MacBook for work, and the Retina display is incredible. I want a Linux AMD laptop with a 2k/4k display. My E485 with 2700U and 1080p matte will have to do for personal work, for now.
- 7y ago

close04 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
- bestham 7y ago
  Where can I read more about these kernel / driver related regressions of each revision?
  - bsdubernerd 7y ago
    These are deaths by a 1000 papercuts, caused by a combination of kernel/kms drivers, xorg & dri. Reporting these bugs is an issue by itself, since it's really non-trivial to understand where some of these problems are and how to report them. One example I like to give is how for the better part of 2018, xorg+kms with (if I remember correctly) broadwell was new, caused random tearing issues that required to use the legacy i915 driver. The i915 had also other issues at the same time, causing blits in xrender to copy dirty areas of memory. Different issues popped up depending if you were daring enough to switch the dri version, glamour and kernel version. This got eventually resolved.. but by the time I switched to haswell. Things got better on the kms front, until I realized I couldn't rotate the screen anymore. When this got resolved, the driver couldn't restore the screen after dpms blanking... This one is fixed on skylake, but on haswell still isn't. ... and so on and so forth. All this was on the lenovo x1 carbon (various versions), then on the x1 yoga (1st, and I'm now on the 3rd version).

kissiel 7y ago

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 7y ago
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-Windows/dp/B084N16YTY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=ryzen+4000&qid=1584449576&s=computers&sr=1-2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zephyrus-GA401IV-GeForce-Graphics-W... So technically they are available in the EU, just a slowly transitioning supply due to logistical human malware factors comming into play.
- kissiel 7y ago
  For the laptop you linked it says: This item will be released on April 16, 2020. Which considering human malware may be May+
  - Zenst 7y ago
    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.

abrowne 7y ago

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

kemotep 7y ago
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-Renoir-APU-Linux https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-Reno...
- snvzz 7y ago
  And 5.4 is a LTS kernel. They were just in time apparently.

holtalanm 7y ago

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.

Roritharr 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.

leptoniscool 7y ago

Awesome, Moore's law is back on track

gtm1260 7y ago

Is there any chance Dell releases and AMD XPS 13?

sfshaw 7y ago
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.

tedunangst 7y ago

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.