Although not Linux specific, the nice thing about Notebookcheck is they have a nice database of other CPUs/devices that you can easily compare against. ServeTheHome has been reviewing a lot of these minipcs as well, here's their review of another one w/ Linux compile times and a few other Linux benchmarks: https://www.servethehome.com/minisforum-um790-pro-review-big...
For those that don't know, the U, HS, and H chips are basically the same chip with slightly different bins and usually can have their TDP modified in BIOS, via Ryzen Master, or third party tools like RyzenAdj (Phoenix support: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/pull/256) to perform pretty closely. (This generation the HX is a '7045' chip is closer to a desktop chip than a mobile APU)
Their tech product news feed is also unparalleled. Definitely not for a lot of people, but for those who do want to see what's coming out for monitors, phones, tablets, laptops, et cetera, https://www.notebookcheck.net/News.152.0.html is seemingly the definitive place to be.
> usually can have their TDP modified in BIOS, via Ryzen Master, or third party tools like RyzenAdj (Phoenix support: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/pull/256) to perform pretty closely.
I didn't know about that. Do you have citations or benchmarks?
A few years ago I did a bunch of poking w/ a 4800H, you can see the actual mechanics of using RyzenAdj. There are also Geekbench 5 benchmarks linked from the doc at different power limits which you can compare to 4800U devices on Geekbench's site: https://github.com/lhl/linuxlaptops/wiki/2020-MECHREVO-Code-...
Note, each laptop manufacturer may choose their different power limits (and like Intel, AMD's curves are largely driven by temperature, so dependent on cooling solution and other settings).
I'd also look up "AMD PMF" (their equivalent of DPTF) which only recently made it's way to the Linux kernel (but of course, that will include loads of details anyone can look through): https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-PMF-CnQF-Linux-6.1
Most of these MiniPC companies like Beelink, Minisforum, Morefine, etc are small Shenzen-based operations so personally I wouldn't expect much in terms of support (whether it's BIOS updates or warranty). If you're going to get one, I'd recommend ordering from Amazon or somewhere local you can easily return it if it's DOA, or going for a more established brand w/ a local distributor/support (Asus, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo all ship AMD minipc models).
Also, while I know this is a personal values judgement, Intel does a pretty good job with the NUCs (at least the mainstream 4x4 line) and given the SFF form factor involved, there is value in being the "mainstream product".
Things like good power management are not a given on competing products, I routinely see the "clones" coming in with 5-10w higher idle power (which is like, double) than the first-party product (most recently Atlas Canyon vs the third-party Tremont clones). Intel is selling to big corporate customers who care a lot about wasting 5W here and 10W there and they took the time to squeeze that.
Also (and this is a more general problem) Intel actually took the time to make the wireless work properly. I've had good bluetooth on exactly three products: intel macbooks, apple silicon macbooks, and intel NUCs. This cuts across cheap/premium, even my Dell Latitude coffee lake laptop from my last job had problems - the keyboard would disconnect, or get stuck repeating a key over and over again. Part of it is that the Intel Wireless chipsets are notoriously bad... but Intel and Apple seem to be able to make them work, so.. To be clear I did have some occasional issues on my NUC but it was way way better than the laptop or any other machine I've ever used (including motherboard wifi with external antenna placed close, dongles on usb 2.0, dongles placed close, etc). On a USFF machine like a NUC that's kind of an important thing, the odds of users using wifi or bluetooth is much higher and it needs to be reliable.
Finally, if you are ever planning to do anything custom/fancy it's potentially nice to have the standardized product. You can get things like plug an OpenUPS directly into the aux power header on the NUC (and again, Intel deserves credit for taking the time to consistently implement these things!) or put it in a HDPlex or Akasa chassis for fanless operation or upgrading it with a pcie card (which runs off the m.2 slot). There's just a ton more of those options available if you're the industry standard.
It sucks, I really want to like the AMD stuff, and maybe it'd be fine just as a desktop replacement. But Intel is one of those cases where it's potentially worth it to spend slightly more for a slightly worse product and just accept that there is an unknown (but probably nonzero) amount of time and effort being saved for that expense, because you're buying a standard, fully-baked product.
Ha, yeah, I was going to say... the writing was sadly pretty much on the wall for a while it seemed like. SimplyNUC (led by ex-Intel NUC guys) will still be chugging on, but for enterprise/business use, personally I actually recommend looking at "industrial" models as well. While there are no guarantees for the business continuing, and they're not always cutting edge, these version typically have 5yr EOLs for each model. For those interested, "embedded 4x4" is a good search term and and you'll get a number of options. ASRock, Sapphire, Advantech, etc have all been around for decades.
Not only AV1 encoding and decoding is available, but all video encoders and decoders are many times faster than in the previous AMD integrated GPUs, allowing the transcoding of many video streams in parallel.
The top models of AMD Phoenix, i.e. of the laptop CPUs which are intended to be used with their integrated GPU, not with an external discrete GPU, are Ryzen 9 7940HS and Ryzen 7 7840HS.
Many benchmarks for these 2 models can be seen at:
TLDR: Both Ryzen 9 7940HS and Ryzen 7 7840HS laptop CPUs (which are slower than the Ryzen HX laptop CPUs) are faster than the fastest 65 W desktop Intel Alder Lake CPU, Core i9-12900 (despite the fact that the latter not only uses more power, but it has 50% more threads).
To be fair, comparing mobile CPUs to desktop CPUs on power consumption is basically meaningless, because desktop CPUs will double the power consumption to get a few extra percent on performance, performance per watt be damned.
And it's comparing against the previous generation 12900 instead of the current generation 13900.
And the extra threads on the 12900 are the E-cores, which aren't that fast.
Basically the result is that current gen AMD mobile CPUs are faster than last gen Intel desktop CPUs. Which is true, and not unimpressive, but far less informative than a comparison of like with like would have been.
7950X for desktops, 7945HX for laptops. Pretty similiar in terms of the compute functionality (16C/32T) although the base clocks and TDPs are different (4.5 GHz for desktop, 2.5 GHz for the laptops as the base clock -- they both can boost much higher).
It's a pretty big difference! Often 20+% on the benchmarks. I have the previous gen CPU in my ThinkPad and it's the quietest, most pleasant laptop I have ever had. All Intel ones I dealt with are like old fridge in comparison (loud and hot outside).
Ditto. My current laptop is starting to get flaky and I'm getting increasingly itchy for a replacement, so I might start looking for quicker-shipping alternatives.
This is true, but nonetheless many computers are guaranteed to work only up to an ambient temperature of 35 degrees Celsius.
In my opinion, this is an incredibly stupid design choice.
After being once caught by surprise, now I check carefully for a specified working temperature of at least 40 degrees Celsius, whenever I am buying any laptop or desktop computers.
This, for example, disqualifies all Gigabyte small computers. Moreover, any computer which does not specify explicitly the maximum working temperature must be automatically disqualified, because it is overwhelmingly likely that it has been designed for 35 degrees Celsius and not for any higher temperature.
Some computers are guaranteed to work normally up to 35 degrees Celsius and to work with reduced performance between 35 degrees Celsius and 40 degrees Celsius, for instance many Intel NUCs. This is perfectly OK.
I suppose some of it can be attributed to general unpleasantness of 37°C and impatience that comes with it, but I have another data point:
A while ago my laptop started running around 10°C hotter than it should have - turns out the iGPU was going wide open throttle for no apparent reason.
What I found was that CPU-intensive tasks slowed down as well, because those 10°C make a huge difference in terms of when the CPU starts throttling.
I wasn't bothered by this too much, even though I had to disable turbo altogether, until the first heat wave of the season hit - +10°C from the iGPU combined with +10°C from the heatwave slowed the device to a crawl - it was the first time I briefly saw it hit 102°C - that is actually above the usual safety threshold.
I think people in different climates either have A/C or are used to different levels of performance.
It's a genuine question though. I've got a ThinkPad P14s (gen2) sporting a AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U CPU. The fans start spinning under sustained workloads (compiling, watching 4K youtube in fullscreen) and that at a room temperature of about 22°C. + 15°C seems non trivial. Granted I could just go outside today and test it out but I am not _that_ curious.
I hope this processor finds it's way into a miniPC such as the ones sold by Beelink or minisforum. Having a quiet but beefy tiny desktop with 8cores/16threads tucked away out of sight would be a superb machine to have, and would also make me consider ditching any laptop.
Beelink also offers barebone version if you live close enough to them. I'd prefer minisforum though, according to STH and other user reviews it's way quieter and cooler, and doesn't have the troublesome magnetically attached power cable.
The only reason I didn't return my Beelink GTR7 is there was a deal and I got it for only ~$370 (barebones).
I've had a terrible time with my Z16 AMD Gen1 (Ryzen 6850H). One broken BIOS update after another, and just when things started to stabilize they pushed out one that broke external USB-C displays and hubs, and the update went out in a way where it could not be rolled back and it's been like this now for over a month without a fix.
Before that they had BIOS versions that under-ran the fan so it overheated, versions that overran the fan constantly, and power management and wake-from-lid-closed under Linux has in general been a nightmare all along.
Lenovo's reputation for reliability has been heavily tarnished by this, but in particular I think going Ryzen with them is a real roll of the dice.
I have a Thinkpad p16s (amd 6850U), and while it's overall a good laptop, I would not recommend thinkpad again.
Aside from a hardware defect at the beginning (cpu cooler not correctly installed), they disabled S3 sleep in BIOS after an update and sleep is sill broken. Unless I boot with `processor.max_cstate=1` the graphics lock up ~once a day (even if you keep it idle and on AC), and resume is more miss than hit.
It seems to be a known and ignored bios problem. (Some say on windows, too. I didn't check)
Wayland/sway might be less capable than good old X on resuming from graphics lockup, but I really disliked Thinkpad BIOS this time.
This has been my experience with my T14s Gen 3 (6850U). S3 sleep is no longer available, and S0 sleep fails to resume at least once a week. Even in Windows (10 and 11). I eventually got them to replace the machine with a new one, and it has the same problem. Otherwise I like the laptop. But the inability to wake from sleep cancels anything good about it and makes it not much more than a paperweight.
I have the P14s with 5850U and the S3 sleep is available when setting the sleep mode to "Linux" in the BIOS, maybe they removed that in newer models though.
Am I falsely remembering the world, or was there a time when sleep really did work fairly reliably? The new sleep states seem strictly worse with multiple issues.
If I am running a beefy single threaded or multi program with CPU, I want the best, not some low power device. Gaming laptop.(Or whatever we want to call it)
If I'm running consumer/enterprise software, I likely want a beefy GPU. Gaming laptop.(Or whatever we want to call it)
If I'm taking a 7 hour bus ride in a bus without a 120V outlet, I want this.
If I'm taking a 6 hour bus ride in a bus without a 120V outlet, I want a gaming laptop.(Or whatever we want to call it)
What is the use case? I got a feeling these companies are chasing Apple's insignificant metric of compute/watt, which doesn't matter as far as I understand.
Why would you want a beefy GPU in anything except a gaming laptop or full blown workstation replacement?
Also on the bus ride. I certainly wouldn't want to unpack a 17" gaming laptop on a bus of all places. You couldn't use a external mouse anyways. There I'd want a steam deck or Nintendo switch.
What is a better word for a laptop with good specs? "High end laptops" are usually garbage when I search for them. 19" monitor and a 3060 for $2000, RGB keyboard 512GB ram, 16gb Ram.
I just use the word gaming laptop because you can get high quality stuff for under $1000, or you can get ultra high quality for $3000 like a 4090.
"Mobile Workstation" is what the PC industry generally calls big, heavy machines with discreet GPUs, but not all the leet stickers / RGB of a gaming laptop. They're pitched to people who CAD, for example.
Sure, i get that. I still don't think I'd want to travel or commute with that kind of laptop.
That's the kind of machine I'd want docked at my desk, connected to multiple displays and all other peripherals. At that power efficiency and battery life are of little concern.
I kind of know what you mean. My bro had a gaming laptop that was gigantic and the fans sounded like a jet engine.
I snagged an Asus the other day with a 3060 + 16gb ram for $800 and its small/light weight. I don't think I've heard the fans on it, but I have kids hahaha
If battery life is a concern, how long do you need to remain on but not plugged in? I've used it in enough 2 hr meetings and I don't think I broke 50% battery. I'm doing CAD work/GPU work.
Higher power also means it has to dissipate more heat, so it has to be heavier. And we're not talking about a couple of grams to have an ethernet port or an M.2 connector instead of soldered storage. You need a bigger heatsink, which is made of metal and dissipates heat in proportion to how much mass it has. They typically also have bigger, heavier batteries and power bricks. And you then have to dissipate the heat from discharging the battery at a faster rate.
They also have to dissipate the heat into something, which is often the chassis, and therefore your lap. Not fun in the summertime.
The higher power chips are only significantly faster on threaded workloads, so if most of your applications are poorly threaded it's a trade off in exchange for almost nothing.
It doesn't replace a beefy GPU but the 780m is more than enough for many workloads and playing older games. It's maybe roughly comparable to having desktop GTX 1050.
There's a decent chance that ryzen models with 740m or 760m that we'll probably see in cheaper ThinkPads won't be half bad either compared to the Intel alternative.
Yet many people are happy with the Steam Deck which has a roughly equivalent GPU[0]
>The Steam Deck GPU is based on hardware that is difficult to compare to typical PC video cards. However, the GPU’s maximum throughput of around 1.6 teraflops makes it loosely equivalent in power to an Nvidia GTX 1050 or GTX 950.
Pretty obvious reasons. As long as performance is "good enough", people very much prefer thinner, lighter and better battery life. So "luggables" have the very tiny niche of "ultrabook not powerful enough" and "still low enough requirements to not need a desktop, server, ...". Not to mention that e.g. a Razer Blade 14 starts at 2800€.
I have currently 7300HQ based laptop. Would this provide good perf improvement to web dev, primarily based on vite, or is it bottlenecked by something else. Currently its somewhat sluggish but I guess its not worlds end.
It's going to be night and day for sure. Your CPU wasn't great when it launched.
I have several Ryzen laptops, including a 6800H. The thing is as fast as the latest and greatest from Apple, although with a bit worse battery life. I get about 12 hours in Linux with Gnome. Very quiet. The fan turns on only during gaming, or prolonged compiling.
The mobile Ryzen 7000 line is a bit messy, though. If you want the Zen 4 stuff, you need to look for a 7x4x model, such as the 7840 from this article.
7 is the generation.
4 indicates that it's a Zen 4 part. There are many 7x3x parts on the market because they are simply rebranded Zen 3 (5000 and 6000) parts.
Thanks, might upgrade to lenovo yoga slim 7 when it comes available. It has 7840u and oled screen. I was just looking oled laptop screens on electronic store today. It looked great even text which some say looks poor on oled.
Just in case you are going to be running Linux - make sure the WiFi drivers have been mainlined.
It can be a problem with newer models. Make sure you run the 6.2 kernel or newer. Second best option would be to build the drivers yourself, assuming they are available in the first place
The initial AMD announcement included some comparisons, for example
"AMD also included battery life benchmarks comparing the Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U against two Core i7 models and the Apple M2 Pro, with the former both having a battery capacity of 54 Wh, while the latter had a 69.6 Wh battery. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U system was equipped with a 51.3 Wh battery yet managed to deliver longer battery life than all three competing laptops, with the highest delta being a 70% advantage over the Core i7-1370P"
"AMD says AMD is the best." Wow, I'm so surprised. I also think I am the best(/s).
I still find this compute per watt thing such a silly thing for any company to care about. Until Apple did it, it was not on anyone's minds. Once Apple did it, they dumped a bunch of money into marketing a metric that no one cared about; and now people pretend to care about it.
Not to mention this obsession with CPU that I just cannot grasp. Not sure what industries this is the bottleneck.
Blame Apple - Linux is still a 2nd grade beta OS as the team trying to port Linux to Apple is still working on reverse-engineering many of the parts of M1 / M2 SoC. Until Apple actually provides documentation to system developers, we'd be fools to buy and trust the M1+ platform.
I wouldn't be that strict. It's not like many PC laptop manufacturers provide drivers or documentation. Buying a laptop like Acer or other known brand, you're still relying on a few reverse engineered devices.
Only a few though. Support for the CPU, chipset components and GPU are contributed by the component vendors themselves. Other components use standard interfaces, like AHCI, XHCI, NVMe, HD audio, ... Not much remains up to the brands like Acer which didn't really provide any components themselves, only put them together.
Meanwhile on the M1, even keyboard support was implemented fairly late and is not mainline yet.
Although not Linux specific, the nice thing about Notebookcheck is they have a nice database of other CPUs/devices that you can easily compare against. ServeTheHome has been reviewing a lot of these minipcs as well, here's their review of another one w/ Linux compile times and a few other Linux benchmarks: https://www.servethehome.com/minisforum-um790-pro-review-big...
For those that don't know, the U, HS, and H chips are basically the same chip with slightly different bins and usually can have their TDP modified in BIOS, via Ryzen Master, or third party tools like RyzenAdj (Phoenix support: https://github.com/FlyGoat/RyzenAdj/pull/256) to perform pretty closely. (This generation the HX is a '7045' chip is closer to a desktop chip than a mobile APU)