At every turn in the story of AMD’s notebook portfolio, we’ve been there to document the highs and lows. Five years ago, AMD was definitely suffering from a combination of a poor platform, and poor notebook designs tailored for the budget end of the market. Last year, AMD scored a design win in the Microsoft Surface, and now 2020 is set to be another significant step back into this market, with the new Ryzen Mobile 4000 series. Touting over 100+ design wins this year for the new 7nm processor line, we have the first of the halo products in for review: the ASUS Zephyrus G14, with an 8-core Ryzen 9 4900HS under the hood. We’re comparing it to an equivalent Razer Blade 15-inch, and it is very clear that AMD can take the lead in a lot of tests, and be very competitive in others.
The Notebook Market and Ryzen Mobile 4000
One of the strongest elements to PC market growth in recent years is the notebook market. Users have been updating their mobile PC more frequently than their desktop, especially when new form factors offer more performance in thinner and lighter designs, with new features such as faster Wi-Fi, high resolution displays, and high capacity fast storage. All of which, in turn, has lead to a push for a quicker update cycle.
These new form factor designs, like thin and lights, or 2-in-1s, are driven by high performance components that are able to run efficiently across a wide spectrum of performance levels, to deliver throughput for gaming and work when needed, or to power down to conserve power when on the road or in an airplane. The cost of these new form factor devices have come down to something more palatable for the average user, but for a good number of years, AMD’s hardware wasn’t even in this market.
For 2020, AMD is expecting to be at the forefront of notebook design wins, due to two main features of the new Ryzen Mobile 4000 strategy: high performance components, and co-design with OEMs. When the OEMs start spending more money on designing higher profile systems for a specific processor, like the ASUS Zephyrus G14 with a Ryzen 9 that we have in for testing, it is clear that the hardware underneath should offer something that the market wants.
In total there are eleven of AMD’s new ‘Renoir’ Ryzen Mobile 4000 CPUs, split across the 15 W and 45 W markets. The top CPUs in each offer up to eight Zen 2 cores, Vega 8 integrated graphics, and the main differences between the two sets is going to be the base frequencies.
| AMD Ryzen Mobile 4000 APUs |
| Aliteq | Cores Threads | Base Freq | Turbo Freq | L2 | L3 | GPU CUs GPU Freq | TDP |
| H-Series | |||||||
| Ryzen 9 4900H | 8 / 16 | 3.3 GHz | 4.4 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 8 / 1750 MHz | 45 W |
| Ryzen 9 4900HS | 8 / 16 | 3.0 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 8 / 1750 MHz | 35 W |
| Ryzen 7 4800H | 8 / 16 | 2.9 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 7 / 1600 MHz | 45 W |
| Ryzen 7 4800HS | 8 / 16 | 2.9 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 7 / 1600 MHz | 35 W |
| Ryzen 5 4600H | 6 / 12 | 3.0 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3 MB | 8 MB | 6 / 1500 MHz | 45 W |
| Ryzen 5 4600HS | 6 / 12 | 3.0 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3 MB | 8 MB | 6 / 1500 MHz | 35 W |
| U-Series | |||||||
| Ryzen 7 4800U | 8 / 16 | 1.8 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 8 / 1750 MHz | 15 W |
| Ryzen 7 4700U | 8 / 8 | 2.0 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 4 MB | 8 MB | 7 / 1600 MHz | 15 W |
| Ryzen 5 4600U | 6 / 12 | 2.1 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3 MB | 8 MB | 6 / 1500 MHz | 15 W |
| Ryzen 5 4500U | 6 / 6 | 2.3 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3 MB | 8 MB | 6 / 1500 MHz | 15 W |
| Ryzen 3 4300U | 4 / 4 | 2.7 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 2 MB | 4 MB | 5 / 1400 MHz | 15 W |
