Review Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS Tested

[lightmanek]

der8auer is impressed (timestamped link) :

He said exactly the same thing I thought to myself when I first saw the benchmarks: why would anyone buy intel in a laptop after Ryzen 4000 launch? The only way anyone sane would do that is if there were no Ryzen 4000 laptops available... Which could easily happen due to super high demand for these chips and what they offer - a premium desktop class x86 performance in 35W package. This is easily more impressive than desktop 3000 series which was almost an impossible feat to accomplish.

I was going to link his video just now ...

He also shows that replacing thermal compound with liquid metal helped with performance, specifically wPrime test saw a jump of average clock by about 150MHz, from 3750 to 3900 on average.
Bottom line from this is, given better cooling, there is a bit more performance to be had.

I'm really curious what will be possible with 4900H in a bigger chassis designed specifically for gaming, like the Intel version of Alienware 17'' laptop.

 

[senttoschool]

What's the battery life while gaming? Very impressive piece of technology by AMD, nonetheless.

I was going to link his video just now ...

He also shows that replacing thermal compound with liquid metal helped with performance, specifically wPrime test saw a jump of average clock by about 150MHz, from 3750 to 3900 on average.
Bottom line from this is, given better cooling, there is a bit more performance to be had.

I'm really curious what will be possible with 4900H in a bigger chassis designed specifically for gaming, like the Intel version of Alienware 17'' laptop.

I want to see that and I want to see what a business laptop designed to maximize battery life will look like.

I'm not much of a gamer so I don't need a dedicated GPU. I care about battery life, portability, and retina resolution.

I basically want a 15" laptop with a 4900HS, no dedicated graphics card, retina display, and as big of a battery as possible in a slim form factor.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Eventually someone should disable the dGPU in the Asus lappie and review it that way. Might be unfair since the cooling solution in a gaming laptop is probably going to be better than what you would get in a "business" laptop with no dGPU, assuming any OEM sells that configuration. Which they may not.

Another sobering thought: 4000-series Renoir is just Zen2. AMD will be back next year with mobile chips based on Zen3. Barring delays, of course.

 

[senttoschool]

Eventually someone should disable the dGPU in the Asus lappie and review it that way. Might be unfair since the cooling solution in a gaming laptop is probably going to be better than what you would get in a "business" laptop with no dGPU, assuming any OEM sells that configuration. Which they may not.

Another sobering thought: 4000-series Renoir is just Zen2. AMD will be back next year with mobile chips based on Zen3. Barring delays, of course.

Just throwing some numbers out there...

Zen3 IPC is expected to be 15% higher which when combined with a 10% boost from using next-gen 7nm means we might see 1.265x performance gain at the same power efficiency over Zen2.

26.5% gain is a another monumental leap in performance.

I also expect next-gen APU to skip over Navi and go straight to Navi2 because it seems like AMD has had Navi2 ready for a long time due to consoles. Navi is already more efficient than Vega. Navi2 is 50% more efficient than Navi for dedicated graphics cards.

It's hard to imagine how Intel can compete with Zen3+Navi2 on 7nm+.

Renoir already choke slammed Intel. Next-gen APU might blow Intel out. Luckily, I don't have a need to upgrade yet. Apple needs come out with something as good as Zen3+Navi2 next year or they will need to switch to AMD to keep me as a customer.

 

[AtenRa]

Didnt know there was a thread for this laptop review , i posted on the Renoir thread.

 

[Panino Manino]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1244753398349484032

Francois watched Linus video?
I can't believe that "he is still in denial".
Seriously, he was not joking that "AMD still didn't beat Skylake".

 

[richierich1212]

Intel must have been selling i7-9750H for peanuts these days and it’s a good thing they did or else most folks would be jumping ship to AMD Renoir-based laptops.

I’ve got 4 laptops for family use and only one will need an upgrade soon (i5-7300HQ, 2x i5-8300H, 1x i7-8750H) but we mainly play Apex Legends and Monster Hunter World.

I’ll wait and see what other laptops there will be because the ASUS G14 is overkill for us and the TUF laptop doesn’t appeal to me.

Why AMD chose ASUS for a period of exclusivity is beyond me.

 

[AtenRa]

I still cannot understand why they dont make 35W TDP laptops with out dGPUs.
Why have a 15W TDP + 20W TDP dGPU when you can have the same GPU perf and power/thermals with a 35W TDP APU.
It will also cost less since no BOM from the dGPU.

 

[senttoschool]

I still cannot understand why they dont make 35W TDP laptops with out dGPUs.
Why have a 15W TDP + 20W TDP dGPU when you can have the same GPU perf and power/thermals with a 35W TDP APU.
It will also cost less since no BOM from the dGPU.

Does the iGPU takeover for battery reasons when the dGPU isn’t used?

My other guess is that it’s simply not worth spending the engineering resources to completely remove the graphics part from the APU. The market size isn’t big enough to support the added cost in engineering.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I still cannot understand why they dont make 35W TDP laptops with out dGPUs.
Why have a 15W TDP + 20W TDP dGPU when you can have the same GPU perf and power/thermals with a 35W TDP APU.
It will also cost less since no BOM from the dGPU.

1). OEM thinks it's easier to cool 15W from one source and 20W from another, instead of up to 35W from one source.
2). OEM already has a warehouse full of dGPUs and intends to use them whether or not it makes any sense. See also single-SODIMM configurations.

 

[inf64]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1244753398349484032

Francois watched Linus video?
I can't believe that "he is still in denial".
Seriously, he was not joking that "AMD still didn't beat Skylake".

Francois is either bad redacted crazy or in a very deep denial. Either way it's sad.

We have a zero tolerance policy for profanity in the tech sub-forums.
Don't do it again.

Iron Woode
Super Moderator

 

[lobz]

Francois is either bad shit crazy or in a very deep denial. Either way it's sad.

He's just not very intelligent. Not always a requirement for becoming an engineer.

 

[Markfw]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1244753398349484032

Francois watched Linus video?
I can't believe that "he is still in denial".
Seriously, he was not joking that "AMD still didn't beat Skylake".

Why does anybody even listen to this guy, he so braindead

 

[Shivansps]

Someone did a teardown yet? i want to see the cooling system, the GPU cooling has to be helping the CPU cooling in order to get to these numbers.

Also i would not trust Cinebench on this, the ST number is way too high compared to a 3700X that has higher turbo and higher TDP.

 

[Markfw]

Someone did a teardown yet? i want to see the cooling system, the GPU cooling has to be helping the CPU cooling in order to get to these numbers.

Also i would not trust Cinebench on this, the ST number is way too high compared to a 3700X that has higher turbo and higher TDP.

Its in one of the linked videos, just watch them, Possibly in another thread, I have watched so many, I just know its here.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Someone did a teardown yet? i want to see the cooling system, the GPU cooling has to be helping the CPU cooling in order to get to these numbers.

Also i would not trust Cinebench on this, the ST number is way too high compared to a 3700X that has higher turbo and higher TDP.

Der8auer, of course. What does he NOT tear down?

 

[thesmokingman]

OMG Did you see the monster that they pitted it against ? And it won in virtually everything ?

Yea, that helios is ridiculous! It looks like Doofenshmirtz got a hold of the Helios and zapped it with his Make Things Larger-inator.

 

[mopardude87]

Toms lost all credibility with me after they attacked Hardware Unboxes method of testing cheap B450 motherboards. They used a 3700x instead of a 3950x and of course didn't have the issues HWUB did, geez i wonder why? Yeah NEVER again with Toms not that i have used them in years but even more so now.

I am surprised after that little flop of theirs, anyone is even taking their results seriously.

 

[moinmoin]

Toms lost all credibility with me after they attacked Hardware Unboxes method of testing cheap B450 motherboards. They used a 3700x instead of a 3950x and of course didn't have the issues HWUB did, geez i wonder why? Yeah NEVER again with Toms not that i have used them in years but even more so now.

I am surprised after that little flop of theirs, anyone is even taking their results seriously.

Don't really want to defend Toms, I'd go by the author's track record.
Anyway feel free to ignore them, in this thread plenty reviews from other sources were already listed.

 

[mopardude87]

Don't really want to defend Toms, I'd go by the author's track record.
Anyway feel free to ignore them, in this thread plenty reviews from other sources were already listed.

I don't know if you remember that fiasco but yeah they went out of their ways to call HWUB trolls when the dude over there asked for a meeting, that is beyond disrespectful. He simply wanted to meetup and compare data cause obviously something was way off given Toms was the outlier while the rest of the people found similar issues with cheap motherboards.As someone about to buy a B450 and prob 3900x/4900x before end of year, if i listened to Toms i would be on one heck of a flakey motherboard instead of settling on a B450 Tomahawk Max. That one has been proven at least.

I will buy whatever HWUB sells before Toms, they did out of the case and in the case testing, they went up and above the call of duty with their testing. Heck i will buy TPU before Toms.

Edit: Yeah here is the video where he calls Toms out. Yeah NEVER again.

 

[Shivansps]

Der8auer, of course. What does he NOT tear down?

Well thats explain a lot, the combined TDP of that cooler should be well in the +60W tdp area, forget about 35W no way in hell that the CPU is running at 35W while the GPU is not in use, thats why it performs so close to a 3700X. And Intel needs around 30-40% more TDP to match it, we know this from desktop chips, this also explain Linux results with the helios.

 

[DrMrLordX]

no way in hell that the CPU is running at 35W while the GPU is not in use

I would say, more like, no way in hell it's throttling thermally. If it's constrained to a 35W target then it'll stay within the target.

 

[uzzi38]

Well thats explain a lot, the combined TDP of that cooler should be well in the +60W tdp area, forget about 35W no way in hell that the CPU is running at 35W while the GPU is not in use, thats why it performs so close to a 3700X. And Intel needs around 30-40% more TDP to match it, we know this from desktop chips, this also explain Linux results with the helios.

Boosting algo for the G14 is as follows:

65W for 10 seconds.
54W for 150 seconds.
35W indefinitely.

Check Hardware's Unboxed's review for this:

 

[DrMrLordX]

So for most benches, it's running @ 54W.

 

[mopardude87]

That 4900HS is amazing, that is based on Zen 2 and not the upcoming Zen 3 right? I really hate how they named it. Even shared it on my wall on facebook, cause i know some in the market for a lappy this year for school .