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I've played with an AMD 6800u laptop and I would say it's the ideal x86 laptop chip right now. Normal usage at the 12w mode or light gaming at 20w mode was supe

by kcb 4y ago

I've played with an AMD 6800u laptop and I would say it's the ideal x86 laptop chip right now. Normal usage at the 12w mode or light gaming at 20w mode was super impressive. Even though 12th Gen Intel chips have made great performance gains Intel is still relying on unsustainable high turbo boosts to get the benchmark numbers. I just recently stumbled across these two otherwise identical laptops. https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/Lenovo/Lenovo_Slim_7_ProX_14IAH7/Lenovo_Slim_7_ProX_14IAH7_Spec.pdf https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/Lenovo/Lenovo_Slim_... https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/Lenovo/Lenovo_Slim_7_ProX_14ARH7/Lenovo_Slim_7_ProX_14ARH7_Spec.pdf https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/Lenovo/Lenovo_Slim_... The AMD version is rated for 20% greater battery life just from the CPU difference.

ZuLuuuuuu 4y ago
Exactly. Not just 1 model but you can compare identical ThinkPad models as well and AMD versions have significantly better battery life. Not only that, even last year's identical models with 11th Gen Intel CPUs have better battery life than their new 12th Gen models. So Intel's power efficiency actually decreased compared to last year, even though they introduced the hybrid architecture. In some instances Alder Lake CPUs slightly edge out Apple's CPUs in performance, but with a terrible battery life (~4 hours of real world battery life vs >10 hours on Apple laptops) and noisy fans. AMD on the other hand seems to have focused on getting a good balance this year. 6800U models have significant performance improvements over the last gen while improving the battery life as well. I am thinking of buying a new laptop this year, but I am waiting for the AMD models. For anyone interested, these are the models I am waiting for: https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkBook/ThinkBook_13s_G4_ARB https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkBook/ThinkBook_13s_G4_... https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X13_Gen_3_AMD https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X13_Gen_3... Both have much better battery life than their Intel counterparts: ThinkBook 13s Gen 4 (AMD): 14 hours ThinkBook 13s Gen 4 (Intel): 10.9 hours ThinkPaf X13 Gen 3 (AMD): 15.68 hours ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 (Intel): 11.8 hours These numbers are usually lower in real life, but they are comparable with each other.
- microtonal 4y ago
  These numbers are usually lower in real life There are data sheets and then there is real life. People were raving about AMD laptops before. I got a ThinkPad T14 AMD with a 4750U. The stated psref battery life is MobileMark 2014: 14 hr, MobileMark 2018: 11.5 hr. In practice that was more like 7 hours on Windows (with a mild workload) and 3 hours on Linux. The CPU performance was merely ok and I could get the fans blowing quite quickly. Life with the laptop was quite miserable. There were many other paper cuts and despite being Linux-certified, I used Windows with WSL most of the time since basic things like suspend would at least work relatively reliably. I sold the T14 after 7 months (thank deity that there was a chip shortage, so I could recoup quite a lot of the 1400 Euro I paid for the T14), got a MacBook Air M1 and didn't look back. It's a world of difference.
  - pythux 4y ago
    That does not match my own experience with a very similar t14s equipped with same CPU. I get much better battery life than 3 hours on Linux even with moderate workload (compiling, browsing, etc.). I often use it on the go and it’s been pretty great.
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    There is a big improvement from the 4000 series to the 6000 series.
  - ttarr 4y ago
    Lenovo ThinkPad T14 AMD Gen 1 here. My experience is totally different, using Fedora 36, everything works! Battery life I have no exact numbers, but definitely way more than 3 hours.
  - FeistySkink 4y ago
    I'm also on a fully-specced T14 Gen 1 AMD with the same CPU (4750u) and I get a full day's use out of it under Fedora 36. And CPU performance is way more than OK for my use-cases. I'm curious what you were doing with it.
  - inciampati 4y ago
nirui 4y ago
Since this is Hacker News and a lot of people here runs Linux, I want to remind everybody to hold your horses before you tested Linux on these machines. The machine that I'm currently using comes with a Ryzen 6800H CPU and LPDDR5-6400 RAMs, made by Lenovo. On Linux, the builtin keyboard don't work because of IRQ problems (See [1], a fix is also available at [2]), and it constantly spams out "mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged" messages. [1]: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277260 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277260 [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220712020058.90374-1-gch981213@gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220712020058.90374-1-gch981213... If you read the code in [2], the patch basically disables IRQ override for every new Ryzen machines (`boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_ZEN)`). Based on that, I assume every new Ryzen CPU has the same problem(???) Edit: wait... blaming it on the CPU might be unjust, it's more like a kernel adoption problem. Luckily, compiling Linux kernel with 16 threads is not really too big of a struggle, you can just apply the patch manually every time the kernel updates :-) :-| :-(
- lhl 4y ago
  Here's a user report from back in April from a user running w/ 5.17.x on a 2022 Asus Zephyrus G14 w/ an 6800HS w/o keyboard issues so I don't think it affects all laptops running Ryzen 6000. https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/u5p1rs/zephyrus_g14_2022_hardware_compatibility_report/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/u5p1rs/zephy...
- kramerger 4y ago
  Note that this is more of a motherboard issue than a CPU problem. The fix is basically to disable a previous fix for some other buggy hardware. Plenty of people have new Ryzen laptops that work just fine.
- koiueo 4y ago
  My AMD Gen 1 has been nothing but trouble under Linux. But it's not CPU, it's Lenovo. Lenovo has terrible firmware team.
  - ttarr 4y ago
nicolaslem 4y ago
I have been using a 6800U on Linux for the past two weeks. With kernel 5.18 almost everything is supported out of the box. The few issues I have: - Kernel logs show that the GPU driver crashes from time to time. When it happens the screen freezes for a few seconds but recovers. - HVEC hardware decoder gives green artifacts on VLC using VA-API. - It seems not to support advanced power management, on battery the CPU will happily boost to 4.7 GHz which in my opinion makes little sense. AMD has been steadily pushing work related to power management so I expect it to improve. As it stands total power consumption on battery averages 5.1 W.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Can I ask which laptop that is?
  - nicolaslem 4y ago
    Sure, HP 845 G9.
- lhl 4y ago
  AMD does automatically switch to a "power saving" profile on battery that lowers power consumption significantly vs on charger, but if you want, you can tweak even further with a fantastic tool: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj - it's a simple CLI util so easy to set up w/ udev rules to run automatically. On my old Ryzen laptop, I have it set to run `ryzenadj -f 48` when I go on battery, which limits the temperature below my laptop's fan hysteresis for a very efficient and totally silent system, and `ryzenadj -f 95` to set it back, but you can also adjust most power and clock parameters (not everything works on Ryzen 6000 yet, but the basics should). The docs/wiki are also great and has lots of charts illustrating what each setting does: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/wiki/Renoir-Tuning-Guide https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/wiki/Renoir-Tuning-Guide The other tool you could check out (and use in conjunction or instead of ryzenadj) is a tool called auto-cpufreq: https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq - it lets you switch governor and turbo/clock speeds automatically base on battery if you're just looking for a simpler way to set that. 5.19 has a bunch of amdgpu fixes that might fix some things https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2022-April/351458.html https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2022-April/... but sadly there are often also sometimes regressions/weird bugs: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues?page=90&sort=priority&state=all https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues?page=90&sort...
kaliszad 4y ago
At least on most ThinkPads, the AMD versions lack Thunderbolt 3/4/ USB 4.0 Full Feature (e.g. including TB) so if I have a Thunderbolt docking station, it will probably not work. Nobody confirmed to me, what would work in such a setting. Will Lenovo/ AMD provide USB 4 upgrade using firmware? Of course, the next question is the potentially asymmetric RAM on the ThinkPads with one channel soldered and one SO-DIMM slot, e.g. the 48 GB version. Will it use dual-channel until ~32 GB and then single-channel? How will the GPU perform, e.g. will it use only one slot in such a configuration. So many questions...
- sharms 4y ago
  The newer AMD 6xxx series supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 (USB 4 spec includes TB3), which has quite a few compatible docking stations available
  - kaliszad 4y ago
    Formally yes, but it isn't listed e.g. in the ThinkPad T14 Gen3 (AMD) specs as supported, they are all USB 3.2 only. No TB, no USB 4. TB 3 seems to be optional in the USB 4 spec, as it would need to support 40 Gbps speeds and not "only" 20 Gbps.
    - kcb 4y ago
      The T14s Gen 3 has USB 4 support listed. Lenovo is all over the place with which AMD models support it.
jeffbee 4y ago
The 6800U models on the market just show that the integration by the OEM is far more important than the choice of CPU. The Asus Zenbook S 13 manages to hit 60° on its bottom case under sustained load, which is an impractical temperature. The Lenovo Yoga 9i which on paper uses a hotter Intel CPU runs cooler, quieter, and longer while also beating the Zenbook on benchmarks. So you really have to look at the entire package.

by kcb 4y ago

ZuLuuuuuu 4y ago

Exactly. Not just 1 model but you can compare identical ThinkPad models as well and AMD versions have significantly better battery life. Not only that, even last year's identical models with 11th Gen Intel CPUs have better battery life than their new 12th Gen models. So Intel's power efficiency actually decreased compared to last year, even though they introduced the hybrid architecture. In some instances Alder Lake CPUs slightly edge out Apple's CPUs in performance, but with a terrible battery life (~4 hours of real world battery life vs >10 hours on Apple laptops) and noisy fans. AMD on the other hand seems to have focused on getting a good balance this year. 6800U models have significant performance improvements over the last gen while improving the battery life as well. I am thinking of buying a new laptop this year, but I am waiting for the AMD models. For anyone interested, these are the models I am waiting for: https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkBook/ThinkBook_13s_G4_ARB https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkBook/ThinkBook_13s_G4_... https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X13_Gen_3_AMD https://psref.lenovo.com/Product/ThinkPad/ThinkPad_X13_Gen_3... Both have much better battery life than their Intel counterparts: ThinkBook 13s Gen 4 (AMD): 14 hours ThinkBook 13s Gen 4 (Intel): 10.9 hours ThinkPaf X13 Gen 3 (AMD): 15.68 hours ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 (Intel): 11.8 hours These numbers are usually lower in real life, but they are comparable with each other.

microtonal 4y ago
These numbers are usually lower in real life There are data sheets and then there is real life. People were raving about AMD laptops before. I got a ThinkPad T14 AMD with a 4750U. The stated psref battery life is MobileMark 2014: 14 hr, MobileMark 2018: 11.5 hr. In practice that was more like 7 hours on Windows (with a mild workload) and 3 hours on Linux. The CPU performance was merely ok and I could get the fans blowing quite quickly. Life with the laptop was quite miserable. There were many other paper cuts and despite being Linux-certified, I used Windows with WSL most of the time since basic things like suspend would at least work relatively reliably. I sold the T14 after 7 months (thank deity that there was a chip shortage, so I could recoup quite a lot of the 1400 Euro I paid for the T14), got a MacBook Air M1 and didn't look back. It's a world of difference.
- pythux 4y ago
  That does not match my own experience with a very similar t14s equipped with same CPU. I get much better battery life than 3 hours on Linux even with moderate workload (compiling, browsing, etc.). I often use it on the go and it’s been pretty great.
- akvadrako 4y ago
  There is a big improvement from the 4000 series to the 6000 series.
- ttarr 4y ago
  Lenovo ThinkPad T14 AMD Gen 1 here. My experience is totally different, using Fedora 36, everything works! Battery life I have no exact numbers, but definitely way more than 3 hours.
- FeistySkink 4y ago
  I'm also on a fully-specced T14 Gen 1 AMD with the same CPU (4750u) and I get a full day's use out of it under Fedora 36. And CPU performance is way more than OK for my use-cases. I'm curious what you were doing with it.
- inciampati 4y ago

nirui 4y ago

Since this is Hacker News and a lot of people here runs Linux, I want to remind everybody to hold your horses before you tested Linux on these machines. The machine that I'm currently using comes with a Ryzen 6800H CPU and LPDDR5-6400 RAMs, made by Lenovo. On Linux, the builtin keyboard don't work because of IRQ problems (See [1], a fix is also available at [2]), and it constantly spams out "mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged" messages. [1]: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277260 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277260 [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220712020058.90374-1-gch981213@gmail.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220712020058.90374-1-gch981213... If you read the code in [2], the patch basically disables IRQ override for every new Ryzen machines (`boot_cpu_has(X86_FEATURE_ZEN)`). Based on that, I assume every new Ryzen CPU has the same problem(???) Edit: wait... blaming it on the CPU might be unjust, it's more like a kernel adoption problem. Luckily, compiling Linux kernel with 16 threads is not really too big of a struggle, you can just apply the patch manually every time the kernel updates :-) :-| :-(

lhl 4y ago
Here's a user report from back in April from a user running w/ 5.17.x on a 2022 Asus Zephyrus G14 w/ an 6800HS w/o keyboard issues so I don't think it affects all laptops running Ryzen 6000. https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/u5p1rs/zephyrus_g14_2022_hardware_compatibility_report/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/u5p1rs/zephy...
kramerger 4y ago
Note that this is more of a motherboard issue than a CPU problem. The fix is basically to disable a previous fix for some other buggy hardware. Plenty of people have new Ryzen laptops that work just fine.
koiueo 4y ago
My AMD Gen 1 has been nothing but trouble under Linux. But it's not CPU, it's Lenovo. Lenovo has terrible firmware team.
- ttarr 4y ago

nicolaslem 4y ago

I have been using a 6800U on Linux for the past two weeks. With kernel 5.18 almost everything is supported out of the box. The few issues I have: - Kernel logs show that the GPU driver crashes from time to time. When it happens the screen freezes for a few seconds but recovers. - HVEC hardware decoder gives green artifacts on VLC using VA-API. - It seems not to support advanced power management, on battery the CPU will happily boost to 4.7 GHz which in my opinion makes little sense. AMD has been steadily pushing work related to power management so I expect it to improve. As it stands total power consumption on battery averages 5.1 W.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Can I ask which laptop that is?
- nicolaslem 4y ago
  Sure, HP 845 G9.
lhl 4y ago
AMD does automatically switch to a "power saving" profile on battery that lowers power consumption significantly vs on charger, but if you want, you can tweak even further with a fantastic tool: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj - it's a simple CLI util so easy to set up w/ udev rules to run automatically. On my old Ryzen laptop, I have it set to run `ryzenadj -f 48` when I go on battery, which limits the temperature below my laptop's fan hysteresis for a very efficient and totally silent system, and `ryzenadj -f 95` to set it back, but you can also adjust most power and clock parameters (not everything works on Ryzen 6000 yet, but the basics should). The docs/wiki are also great and has lots of charts illustrating what each setting does: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/wiki/Renoir-Tuning-Guide https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/wiki/Renoir-Tuning-Guide The other tool you could check out (and use in conjunction or instead of ryzenadj) is a tool called auto-cpufreq: https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq - it lets you switch governor and turbo/clock speeds automatically base on battery if you're just looking for a simpler way to set that. 5.19 has a bunch of amdgpu fixes that might fix some things https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2022-April/351458.html https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2022-April/... but sadly there are often also sometimes regressions/weird bugs: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues?page=90&sort=priority&state=all https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues?page=90&sort...

kaliszad 4y ago

At least on most ThinkPads, the AMD versions lack Thunderbolt 3/4/ USB 4.0 Full Feature (e.g. including TB) so if I have a Thunderbolt docking station, it will probably not work. Nobody confirmed to me, what would work in such a setting. Will Lenovo/ AMD provide USB 4 upgrade using firmware? Of course, the next question is the potentially asymmetric RAM on the ThinkPads with one channel soldered and one SO-DIMM slot, e.g. the 48 GB version. Will it use dual-channel until ~32 GB and then single-channel? How will the GPU perform, e.g. will it use only one slot in such a configuration. So many questions...

sharms 4y ago
The newer AMD 6xxx series supports Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 (USB 4 spec includes TB3), which has quite a few compatible docking stations available
- kaliszad 4y ago
  Formally yes, but it isn't listed e.g. in the ThinkPad T14 Gen3 (AMD) specs as supported, they are all USB 3.2 only. No TB, no USB 4. TB 3 seems to be optional in the USB 4 spec, as it would need to support 40 Gbps speeds and not "only" 20 Gbps.
  - kcb 4y ago
    The T14s Gen 3 has USB 4 support listed. Lenovo is all over the place with which AMD models support it.

jeffbee 4y ago

The 6800U models on the market just show that the integration by the OEM is far more important than the choice of CPU. The Asus Zenbook S 13 manages to hit 60° on its bottom case under sustained load, which is an impractical temperature. The Lenovo Yoga 9i which on paper uses a hotter Intel CPU runs cooler, quieter, and longer while also beating the Zenbook on benchmarks. So you really have to look at the entire package.