Renoir laptops: Beating Intel at a third of the price, half the weight, and a fraction of the power
It's been quite some time since AMD's latest mobile chips were announced. Since then, they've impressed us in our testing across a number of laptops. We've recorded budget laptops performing at levels that rival (or even beat) laptops twice the price. AMD has certainly shaken up the laptop industry, delivering industry-leading performance in market segments you wouldn't expect.
It's no surprise to enthusiasts that AMD's Renoir processors are delivering performance above Intel's Ice Lake or Comet Lake offerings. Using all of the Renoir laptop benchmark data we've taken, let's take a look at the full picture and see where AMD stands.
H-series Processors
AMD's H-series Zen 2 mobile processors have been performing quite handsomely in our testing, propelling themselves high enough above Intel's current offerings to the point where team blue has tried to discount the value of benchmarks. However, we find benchmarks to be very important for making objective comparisons between laptops and other devices. Since Intel has yet to detail a proper alternative to them, let's take a look at some benchmarks and see if we can find what has Intel concerned.
| wPrime 2.10 - 1024m | |
| Eurocom Sky X4C i9-9900KS | |
| Asus Zephyrus G14 GA401IV | |
* ... smaller is better
The performance differences here are fairly obvious. At the top of our Cinebench R20 multi-core scoreboard, we have the Renoir-powered Eluktronics RP-15, a 15-inch Tongfang-manufactured laptop weighing in at only 1.9 kg. Trailing behind by 4% in the same benchmark we have the Clevo-manufactured Eurocom Sky X4C equipped with an Intel Core i9-9900KS. The Sky X4C weighs in at almost double of what the RP-15 does at 3.6 kg, as well as having a much larger footprint at the same screen size. The performance we can see out of the Renoir laptop here is quite impressive.
Things get even more embarrassing for Intel when you look at the third place from the top. Here you see a 14-inch laptop, the Asus Zephyrus G14, equipped with the 35 watt Ryzen 9 4900HS falling just 4% short of the Sky X4C. Even more impressive is the weight difference, which is so substantial that it practically breaks our size comparison tool: The G14's weight is so small it's nearly impossible to read. Considering that the X4C is over double the laptop's weight and dwarfs the G14 when comparing the overall size of the laptops, it's clear that Intel has some catching up to do.
Additionally, based on our stress test data collected for the Eurocom and Eluktronics laptops, the RP-15 beats the Sky X4C by 4% while consuming roughly 40% less power (approx. 70 watts on the RP-15 versus approx. 120 watts on the X4C). The gap in power consumption here is considerable, only further hammering home the benefits of Zen 2's efficiency. Of course, it's important to consider that the Intel Core i9-9900KS used in the Sky X4C is a desktop processor and isn't binned for efficiency. Regardless, it's impressive to see desktop-grade performance out of a laptop as slim as the Eluktronics RP-15. It would be worth mentioning the Zephyrus G14's power consumption on the CPU as well, but unfortunately, we don't have that data available.
Of course, single-core performance is still worth mentioning. Intel still holds the crown when it comes to single-core performance, although the importance of that has been greatly diminished in recent times as utilizing multiple cores has become more common. Unfortunately for team blue, the minuscule difference the chips have in single-core performance likely won't be enough to set Intel ahead in any practical workloads. Plus, we only see better single-core performance out of some of the highest-end, most expensive Intel hardware in our data.
Regarding pricing, a reasonable configuration of the RP-15 will set you back around $1,200. On the Intel side, the Sky X4C we tested could set you back more than triple that price at $3,800. Even the Dell Alienware m17 R2 costs much more, with our tested model priced at $3,900 while performing 13% worse than the RP-15. What does triple your money get you from these Intel laptops? Let's take a look at the graphics benchmark performance of these laptops.
From these scores, it's fairly clear that the faster GPUs being used in these laptops help rather significantly in 3DMark. Considering that these are gaming laptops, this was a fairly obvious outcome and isn't exactly indicative of the CPU's performance. At the time of writing, we have yet to see any Renoir-powered laptops equipped with anything better than an Nvidia RTX 2060 Mobile. While this is disappointing, it's understandable that OEMs wouldn't want to jump head-first into developing laptops with these brand-new chips. It would be far from surprising to see Ryzen laptops become much more powerful in this regard in the coming months, or even later next year.
U-series Processors
Conveniently, both AMD and Intel use the same naming scheme when it comes to their ULV processors. U-series processors are built with efficiency at the forefront and are designed to squeeze the most performance they can out of as little power as possible.
In the data shown below, we can see that our Renoir U-series laptops tested roughly the same in both Cinebench R20 and R15 single-core testing, only varying by a handful of points between each other.
Multi-core is where things get interesting. Despite our rather small sample size, our data does a good job of showing how much of a difference cooler designs can make. For instance, the same chip found in the HP Envy x360 13 can be found in the Lenovo Flex 5 performing 15% better in a Cinebench R20 run. The difference in size and footprint could be a factor, but it's also worth considering that the HP ProBook 445 G7 only beats the 13-inch Envy by 5% in our tests.
Regardless of the thermal situation, the scores we can see out of these laptops are quite impressive. The upper end of our scores (see below) could easily be mistaken for 45 watt Intel processors if we simply omitted the specs. Below, several laptops featuring Intel's H-series processors have been added to demonstrate this.
| wPrime 2.10 - 1024m | |
| Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R4XJ | |
| Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 Core i7 | |
| Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 AMD 81X20005US | |
| Dell XPS 13 7390 Core i7-10710U | |
| Xiaomi RedmiBook 16 R5 | |
* ... smaller is better
The worst result from Intel in this dataset is from the MSI Modern 14. The 6-core, 12-thread processor in the MSI is beaten by the 4-core, 4-thread processor in the Acer Swift 3 by a whole 21%. Considering that around 20% qualifies as a "generational" improvement by some standards, getting beaten by that much goes to show the massive improvements in these latest AMD Ryzen CPUs. That's not even mentioning the fact that the Intel CPU has three times more threads to work with compared to the AMD CPU.
These efficient APUs nearly match the scores of Intel's 45 watt chips despite having half the threads in some cases. We'll likely see even larger margins in performance when SMT-enabled Renoir laptops begin to roll out, most notably with Ryzen 5 4600U and Ryzen 7 4800U APUs.
Ice Lake is pretty much crushed by Renoir in our testing. However, much of that could be attributed to the increased core count on most of our test devices. These Renoir laptops don't have SMT enabled, however, leaving them ultimately with fewer threads. This could explain why the 4-core, 4-thread Ryzen 3 4300U is beaten by Ice Lake with a substantial margin. Regardless, many of these Renoir laptops can be found at prices matching or lower than these Ice Lake laptops. If speed is all you're going for, Ice Lake might not be the best choice at this point.
Of course, the graphical prowess of AMD's integrated Vega graphics can't be ignored. Since even the lowest end integrated GPU from these Renoir APUs would beat, say, Intel UHD Graphics 630, we'll be spending our time comparing Iris Plus Graphics and Vega graphics.
Vega and Iris Plus Graphics are fairly close in performance. The Vega 5 graphics featured on the Ryzen 3 4300U beat our best Iris Plus G4 score by 13%. Vega 6, featured in the Ryzen 5 4500U, just about matches Iris Plus G7 in Time Spy. Overall, the Ryzen 7 4700U tops the charts, beating one of our best Ice Lake Time Spy scores by 15%.
However, things are a bit more scattered when looking at Fire Strike scores. Interestingly, while the Ryzen 7 4700U's Vega 7 graphics beat one of our best Iris Plus G7 scores by 15%, Vega 7 only just matches Iris Plus G7 in Fire Strike. It's important to note that Fire Strike is a much older benchmark than Time Spy, so it's realistic to assume that software support for Vega graphics is much better in Time Spy. Fire Strike is over seven years old at this point, so it would make plenty of sense if this was the case.
Overall, at least in modern titles that can properly take advantage of AMD's Vega integrated graphics, you can expect performance matching or beating Intel's Ice Lake graphics solution. It's worth noting that with Tiger Lake and its substantial performance gains on the horizon, AMD could be dethroned in this regard. This kind of competition is always nice to see, and we're expecting AMD and Intel to continue this battle for the best integrated graphics solution going forward.
One of the key perks of high-end integrated graphics is the decreased relevance of low-end dedicated graphics cards, such as the Nvidia GeForce MX350.
Currently, we anticipate Tiger Lake to bring significant gains in performance. Some preliminary information we've seen suggests that performance could be anywhere around 40% better than Vega 8, which would put Tiger Lake well ahead of our GeForce MX250 data, and only around 15% worse than an MX350. Those numbers are almost clean enough to have slid off some Intel marketing material, but that's just how things worked out here.
Of course, with any comparison of Nvidia GPUs, it's worth noting that the TDP for these Nvidia cards can vary between 10 and 25 watts. The difference between devices could be anywhere up to 150% more power being used, so performance will vary rather dramatically depending on where the TDP was configured on any given laptop. Regardless, that doesn't interfere with the point being made here, plus the consistent performance in our MX250 data suggests they're all operating at the same TDP.
Conclusion
Renoir has certainly shaken things up in the laptop space. The sheer amount of raw performance available in mid-range devices is quite significant, especially considering that CPU performance only previously considered possible in bulky gaming laptops is plenty accessible in slimmer, lighter, and overall smaller form-factor devices.
With Intel's Tiger Lake on the horizon, it will be interesting to see how AMD responds to Intel's latest mobile chips. Considering that Tiger Lake is supposed to bring GPU performance in excess of an Nvidia GeForce MX250 (as noted earlier), choosing between AMD and Intel might not be as obvious of a decision. We're looking forward to even more advancements in performance in the laptop space in the near future, regardless of who delivers it.
