Ryzen Mobile 4000 will give Intel a hard time

AMD has invited us as one of the first in the world to show the possibilities of Ryzen Mobile chips from the 4000 series that will appear in this year's notebooks. We already know one thing with certainty: these are not poor alternatives to Intel's Core systems.

I think that most of us - or at least those interested in the notebook market - thinking about buying a new device first check those containing an Intel processor. This is a very good habit, in recent years the processors of this leading manufacturer have been unmatched in most cases. Qualcomm is still a curiosity, and AMD has long been unable to provide processors that provide a good energy efficiency to performance ratio. Until recently.

Already previous generations of Ryzen mobile systems have provided amazing performance. Especially in graphic calculations, but also in other parameters, it turned out that Intel is no longer the obvious technological leader in this market. Ryzen Mobile has become a very interesting alternative not only because of its price.

Today, however, I have the opportunity to tell you about something completely new for the first time.

Before I do that, however, a small explanation.

According to the original plans, this material was supposed to be much richer. A few weeks ago I was invited to the AMD headquarters in Austin, where I learned about the next features of the company's new processors in a series of lectures and workshops. However, according to the original plan, I was supposed to verify the theory with practice. So AMD was supposed to provide me with a notebook with its new processor for testing. More specifically, Lenovo Yoga 7 Slim.

Unfortunately, due to the unforeseen crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, computers did not arrive. So I was not able to verify what AMD representatives declared during the meeting. I can only share the observation that they were very confident, often adding during speeches assurance that we will be able to verify their declarations in practice on the available equipment. This shows a lot of confidence, but let's remember that for now we believe AMD at the word . We did not conduct independent tests like none of the other invited journalists.

AMD Ryzen Mobile 4000 Series. It was created in cooperation with all partners.

The previous generation of Ryzen processors received a warmer welcome than expected. Ryzen notebooks sold very well, even though they were a small part of all models available on the market. This ensured the reaction of AMD partners and the desire to cooperate even more closely with the manufacturer of these processors. Especially since Ryzen Mobile 4000 are the first x86 notebook processors on the market made in a 7-nanometer technological process. And among them there is the first on the market eight-core (16-thread) system for ultra-thin laptops.

As a result, AMD worked very closely, among others with Microsoft and Google so that their operating systems can make the best use of the specifics of new systems, working on them as stable as possible, most efficiently and most efficiently. AMD now also has much more control over the design of computers containing their components, which is to translate into more effective cooling or a general higher culture of their work.

Demand for AMD systems also increased significantly. The company expects to sell more than 100 different computers with Ryzen Mobile systems this year, including more than a dozen in this quarter - although probably a coronavirus crisis may affect these predictions.

AMR Ryzen Mobile will be divided into three lines. Energy-efficient "U" for ultra-thin laptops, efficient "H" for creators and players, and "Pro" for devices designed for companies. AMD intends to talk about the latter at a later date.

AMD Ryzen Mobile 4000 H - mobile, but efficient.

Three processors will be available on the H line.

• Ryzen 5 4600H is a 6-core (12-thread) system clocked at 3 GHz (4 GHz in Boost mode) with 11 MB cache, six graphical cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and TDP of 45 W.
• Ryzen 7 4800H is an octa-core (16-thread) chip clocked at 2.9 GHz (4.2 GHz in Boost mode) with 12 MB cache, seven graphical cores clocked at 1.6 GHz and a TDP of 45 W.
• Ryzen 9 4900HS is an octa-core (16-core) chip clocked at 3 GHz (4.3 GHz in Boost mode) and a TDP of 35 W.

AMD also provided the first benchmark results comparing the work of Ryzen 4000 H with the competition. Both in professional testing applications:

As in games:

And so apparently the most efficient of all mobile Ryzens falls out:

AMD Ryzen Mobile 4000 U - the power cube for the slimmest notebooks.

Five processors will be available on the U line:

• Ryzen 3 4300U is a quad-core chip clocked at 2.7 GHz (3.7 GHz in Boost mode) with 6 MB cache and five graphics cores clocked at 1.4 GHz and a TDP frequency of 15 W
• Ryzen 5 4500U is a six-core chip clocked at 2.3 GHz (4 GHz in Boost mode) with 11 MB cache and six graphics cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and 15 W TDP
• Ryzen 5 4600U is a six-core (12-thread) system clocked at 2.1 GHz (4 GHz in Boost mode) with 11 MB cache and six graphics cores clocked at 1.5 GHz and TDP of 15 W.
• Ryzen 7 4700U is an octa-core chip clocked at 2 GHz (4.1 GHz in Boost mode) with 12 MB cache and seven graphics cores clocked at 1.6 GHz and TDP of 15 W.
• Ryzen 7 4800U is an eight-core (16-thread) chip clocked at 1.8 GHz (4.2 GHz in Boost mode) with 12 MB cache and eight graphics cores clocked at 1.75 GHz and a TDP frequency of 15 W.

AMD also provided the first benchmark results comparing the work of Ryzen 4000 U with competitors. Both in professional testing applications:

As in games. I note that the result of more than 50 fps in GTA V in 1080p on low graphics details is impressive, given that we are talking about low-voltage processors:

AMD Ryzen 4000 Mobile is a lot of new ideas and mechanisms.

These include TAGE (Tagged Geometric History Lenght Branch Predictor), which is a new jump prediction system that, thanks to improvements, can use most of its memory to store shorter stories. Ryzen Mobile 4000 uses 32 bytes of L1 cache and decodes four instructions in one clock cycle. At the same time, it can perform 10 micro-operations: 6 fixed-point and 4 floating-point. The processing of the latter has been improved by adding up to four ALUs an additional three AGUs to generate addresses.

Ryzen Mobile 4000 also has improvements in the graphic layout. It is still Vega, made in 7-nanometer lithography, consisting of a maximum of 8 Compute Units. Compared to previous Ryzens, the clock speed has been increased, the Data Fabric interface has been doubled, and the bandwidth has been increased by up to 77% thanks to the new memory controller. The capabilities and performance of the video coding and decoding accelerator module, including those from HDR and WCG, have also been significantly increased.

An important novelty is the SmartShift technique. The mechanism means that for a working application Ryzen Mobile 4000 and an external graphics card are seen as one whole, thanks to which the CPU can manage the work of a dedicated GPU with the same freedom as from the Vyza located in Ryzen. SmartShift can also be used for GeForce cards, not just Radeon.

An interesting mechanism is also STAPM, which provides the highest possible timing at any given time. This is possible, among others, thanks to the use of more telemetry mechanisms monitoring the timing and temperature of the modules. This works in conjunction with the STT v2 module, which controls temperatures and enables an optimal increase of CPU and GPU operating parameters if necessary.

What about energy consumption? AMD Ryzen Mobile 4000 will not drain our batteries.

The mere transition to a more accurate technological process ensured a 20% gain in energy consumption. However, a number of further optimizations were made in almost every component of the system. Importantly, Ryzen Mobile 4000 - unlike its predecessors - supports not one, but three AHCI energy states, allowing for further optimization from the firmware and operating system.

Effect?

In most cases, the results are either not much worse than Intel or not much better.

Self-confidence beats from AMD.

Unfortunately, we still have purely theoretical knowledge. The presentation of Ryzen 4000 Mobile did not take place fully as planned - we are still not able to verify the AMD declaration, contrary to the original assumptions of the event. In theory, however, Ryzeny 4000 Mobile will provide significantly higher performance than the competition with similar energy consumption and low heat emissions.

If the declarations of close cooperation with hardware and software manufacturers are confirmed and if the data presented to us are not pulled for the needs of PR (I sincerely doubt it, but it cannot be ruled out), then the filter on Intel when buying a new notebook loses sense. It is highly likely that a computer with an AMD chip will be at least an equally good choice. There are many indications that it is better.

Ryzen Mobile 4000 will give Intel a hard time