Like a prize struggle weigh-in, the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U in Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 7 simply flexed like no different ultrabook CPU we’ve ever seen.
It’s nearly as if the Ryzen 7 4800U snatched the mic from the rostrum and began hurling insults at Intel’s upcoming Tiger Lake CPU. If there was a folding chair, we’re positive it could been thrown at Intel’s entourage whereas the flash bulbs popped.
While we’re nonetheless within the technique of ending our testing, the early outcomes we’re seeing are gobsmackingly spectacular. How spectacular? When we began looking in our spreadsheet for the way different laptops carried out towards the IdeaPad Slim 7’s outcomes, we saved scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling to search out one thing comparable. At that time, any {hardware} reviewer value his or her salt questions whether or not they’re “doing it wrong.” Did I run the flawed take a look at? Am I within the flawed row? Do I would like extra espresso?
No. Not in any respect. The Ryzen 7 4800U within the IdeaPad Slim 7 is simply that stupidly quick.
We thought we ran the flawed take a look at, however nope. The Ryzen 7 4800U within the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 is that quick.
Peep the scores from Maxon’s older Cinebench R15 benchmark, which makes use of all cores to measure a CPU’s efficiency at rendering a 3D picture. We’re not kidding both. We initially thought we ran the flawed take a look at or just recorded it flawed, however the IdeaPad Slim 7 and the Ryzen 7 4800U is simply that quick on this quick, all-core efficiency take a look at.
As you have a look at this chart, it is best to notice the 2 laptops which are even remotely near the IdeaPad’s efficiency aren’t even the identical class of pocket book. Both the Dell XPS 15 7590 with an 8-core Core i9-9980HK and the new Dell XPS 15 9500 with an 8-core Core i7-107850H CPU are mainly 4.5-plus lbs. content material creation laptops with discrete GPUs and beefy cooling.
Intel’s 6-core Comet Lake are subsequent up, however the 4-core laptops aren’t even consuming mud in comparison with the IdeaPad Slim 7, as a result of the shock wave from the Ryzen 7 4800U has sucked the mud with it.
Even extra fascinating is the efficiency of the Ryzen 7 4700U in the budget-priced Acer Swift 7. It’s additionally an 8-core CPU, however AMD leaves simultaneous multi-threading (a.ok.a. it’s model of Hyper-Threading) off. SMT is enabled on the IdeaPad Slim 7 and we’re taking a look at an enormous efficiency bump.
On an extended workload, the thermals come again into play and the Slim 7 comes again to earth. It’s nonetheless sufficient to mainly make us what simply what Intel’s H-class laptops are doing with all that energy they’ve although.
One problem with Cinebench R15 is its quick runtime—possibly a minute, if that. Modern laptops are all restricted by thermals and a brief take a look at doesn’t actually inform you how properly a laptop computer can deal with a very lengthy process. For that, we run Handbrake and encode a 30GB 1080P file utilizing the Android Tablet preset. On an ultrabook, it used to over an hour to run, and was actually only a take a look at to see how properly laptops dealt with warmth over an extended take a look at. With in the present day’s notebooks although, truly working a CPU encoding process on a 3 lbs. laptop computer is solely reasonable.
The consequence continues to be fairly wonderful, however we do see that the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 doesn’t depart its Ryzen siblings within the mud. It nonetheless eats the lunch (and dinner) of the Intel 10th-gen Comet Lake U and 10th-gen Ice Lake U laptop computer, however the thermal limitations of a skinny and lightweight laptop computer are at play. And sure, it’s actually not that a lot slower than an 8-core Core i7-10875H within the Dell XPS 15 9500 both. Phew.
Besides CPU efficiency, AMD’s graphics matter too. With the Ryzen 7 4800U, you get yet one more graphics core over the Ryzen 7 4700U, and also you get barely larger clock speeds: 1,750MHz vs. 1,600MHz. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7, nevertheless, additionally sports activities LPDDR4X RAM clocking as excessive as 4,267MHz. Most of the Ryzen laptops we’ve seen characteristic dual-channel DDR4/3200 reminiscence that’s slower, however decrease value.
Dual-channel LPDDR4X/4267 provides about 23 % extra bandwidth over a dual-channel DDR4/3200 configuration.
Graphics efficiency can usually use all of the reminiscence bandwidth it may well get so we suspect the IdeaPad Slim 7 will get a lift from each the extra graphics core and the clocks plus the sooner LPDDR4X/4267 RAM.
To see how rather more reminiscence bandwidth you’d get, we in contrast the HP Envy x360 13 with its Ryzen 5 and DDR4/3200 to the Lenovo IdeaPad SlimPad 7 and its LPDDR4X/4267. Don’t take this as a repudiation of the HP as a result of we’re actually specializing in the primary reminiscence subsystem right here, and we suspect most different DDR4 laptops would carry out the identical. When we get an opportunity, we’ll additionally have a look at the reminiscence bandwidth of LPDDR4X/3733 widespread in Intel Ice Lake laptops use. Just to notice: Intel’s Tiger Lake will assist LPDDR5X at even larger clock speeds.
Ryzen desktop CPUs usually profit from elevated reminiscence clocks, however we anticipate the built-in Radeon graphics in cell Ryzen to see an much more substantial increase. Let’s have a look at find out how to the Ryzen 7 4800U does with its sooner LPDD4X RAM. We’ll use the artificial 3DMark Sky Diver as a approach to gauge efficiency.
The extra CU, larger clocks and sooner most important reminiscence provides the Ryzen 7 4800U within the IdeaPad Slim 7 a really wholesome enhance in graphics efficiency.
The result’s a really wholesome bump in efficiency over the seven Radeon cores within the Ryzen 7 4700U, however a few of that’s the elevated variety of graphics cores, the elevated clock speeds, and likewise the rise in CPU thread depend, because the rating above is the general consequence. Delving into simply the graphics rating for 3DMark Sky Diver, it will get slightly nearer. Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 7 and its Ryzen 7 4800U gave us a rating of 13,083; the Ryzen 5 4500U within the HP Envy x360 13 received 9,547; and the Acer Swift 3 and its Ryzen 7 4700U completed with 10,888.
And no: There isn’t any Thunderbolt 3
The notification within the bottom-right nook of this screenshot seems while you plug a Thunderbolt gadget into the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7.
Despite some early stories that the IdeaPad Slim 7 has the Holy Grail of options in an AMD laptop computer—Thunderbolt 3—it doesn’t. After studying these stories, we received giddy with our Thunderbolt 3 equipment, solely to finish up with the identical Charlie Brown soccer we’ve seen on Ryzen 4000 laptops for the final 5 months.
What this implies
So what does this all matter? Well, the primary take away is that the Ryzen 7 4800U has lastly arrived simply in time for the primary struggle.
Tiger Lake is more likely to clear Ryzen 4000’s clock in single-threaded efficiency and which may simply matter extra.
When Intel unwraps its 11th-gen “Tiger Lake” CPUs subsequent week, we’ll witness an epic battle for the soul of skinny and lightweight laptops not like any we have now ever seen earlier than. Our earlier prediction that Tiger Lake will lose against Ryzen 4000 in multi-threaded tasks stays the identical. Well, sort of. After seeing the Ryzen 7 4800U’s outcomes, we truly assume it’ll be a complete blowout in multi-threaded efficiency now. Graphics, nevertheless, would possibly simply be nearer than we anticipated. And one space Tiger Lake is more likely to win huge is single-threaded efficiency, which is definitely most likely extra necessary for many of what it’s finished in a small laptop computer.
Stay tuned for our full overview of the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7, and for extra details about Intel’s imminent Tiger Lake counterpunch.