Looking at 2 Zenbooks, question about CPUs

[QueBert]

One has the Ryzen 7 5700U and the other has an i5-1135G7, I did a lot of Googling on both CPU's and the iGPUs. CPU wise theythe R7 look better in some tests, but in the end pretty close in a lot of the benchmarks. But the Iris XE on the Intel look like it would be a decent amount better for gaming. than the Vega R8. Obviously, these aren't gaming laptops, but I'll play some older games like CS:GO and newer ones would work well enough at lower settings. Has anyone here used both CPU's and can give me their opinion? I was looking for a $900'ish gaming laptop originally, but for the price range, none had more than a barely decent panel color & brightness wise.

If it makes any difference the 2 models I'm looking at both come with 8GB LPDDR4X and it's soldered so it can't be upgraded.

 

[QueBert]

Did more reading and Asus has the Intel model CPU's running at 15w instead of 25w, so the Intel benchmarks I've seen for the 1135G7 aren't going to apply to the laptop. Unless I'm missing something would there be any reason to get the Intel over the AMD here?

 

[Rigg]

Did more reading and Asus has the Intel model CPU's running at 15w instead of 25w, so the Intel benchmarks I've seen for the 1135G7 aren't going to apply to the laptop. Unless I'm missing something would there be any reason to get the Intel over the AMD here?

Laptop benchmarks are a bit of a minefield. You seem to be realizing they are very difficult to compare because of power limit and cooling configuration variables.

Given the same platform and PL I'd expect the Vega to outperform the Iris in (most if not all) games, the 1135g7 to have slightly better single core performance, and the 5700U to have much better multi-thread performance. The AMD graphics drivers are much more mature. The Intel will probably gain some performance as their drivers mature.

If you are not aware the 5700U is actually a Zen 2 part while the 5800U is Zen3.

The primary reasons to choose the Intel would be the slightly better single thread performance, and because it can be more readily found in $600 laptops.

 

[QueBert]

Laptop benchmarks are a bit of a minefield. You seem to be realizing they are very difficult to compare because of power limit and cooling configuration variables.

Given the same platform and PL I'd expect the Vega to outperform the Iris in (most if not all) games, the 1135g7 to have slightly better single core performance, and the 5700U to have much better multi-thread performance. The AMD graphics drivers are much more mature. The Intel will probably gain some performance as their drivers mature.

If you are not aware the 5700U is actually a Zen 2 part while the 5800U is Zen3.

The primary reasons to choose the Intel would be the slightly better single thread performance, and because it can be more readily found in $600 laptops.

Thanks for the reply, was juuuuust about submit my order on the UM325 and I started to think about it some more. The model with the 5800u would be better but I don't see any for sale anywhere. What I read on Google said there could be a long wait to actually find one. The 2 Intel models have touch screens, which I can do without but you can get 16gb where the Ryzen's 8gb only, and it's soldered so no upgrading. Also the Intel ones have TB3, which would be nice for eGPU. But with GPU prices it would be years before I buy one lol. Can't think of anything else where TB3 would be needed over the 3.2 gen 2 ports on the AMD one.

I think since it could be months before I could actually buy a Zenbook with the 5800u, I might as well just get the UM325. The Ryzen 5700u's pretty impressive from all the stuff I've read on it. It would be close to on par with my i5-3570k desktop, and it's graphics would destroy the Intel HD4000.

 

[Rigg]

Thanks for the reply, was juuuuust about submit my order on the UM325 and I started to think about it some more. The model with the 5800u would be better but I don't see any for sale anywhere. What I read on Google said there could be a long wait to actually find one. The 2 Intel models have touch screens, which I can do without but you can get 16gb where the Ryzen's 8gb only, and it's soldered so no upgrading. Also the Intel ones have TB3, which would be nice for eGPU. But with GPU prices it would be years before I buy one lol. Can't think of anything else where TB3 would be needed over the 3.2 gen 2 ports on the AMD one.

I think since it could be months before I could actually buy a Zenbook with the 5800u, I might as well just get the UM325. The Ryzen 5700u's pretty impressive from all the stuff I've read on it. It would be close to on par with my i5-3570k desktop, and it's graphics would destroy the Intel HD4000.

Do you have links to the specific models you are comparing?

EGPU is a bad idea IMO. You'd be better off just building a separate desktop or getting a laptop with a mobile GPU. You can lose as much as 40% of the GPU performance from the overhead and bandwidth limitations of TB3. The enclosures aren't particularly cheap either.

 

[QueBert]

Do you have links to the specific models you are comparing?

EGPU is a bad idea IMO. You'd be better off just building a separate desktop or getting a laptop with a mobile GPU. You can lose as much as 40% of the GPU performance from the overhead and bandwidth limitations of TB3. The enclosures aren't particularly cheap either.

lI'll never get EGPU that was just me talking, I'll always have a desktop and if video cards ever become affordable again I'll buy one. I just ordered the laptop but here are the 2 I was looking at. And I was wrong the Intel one has TB4 ports, but again I don't think the speed over 3.2 gen 2 would be of use to me. I Googled and one of the instances where TB4 would be an advantage is if you have like 3+ external SSD's, which uh yeah I'll never do. I'll probably get a USB C m.2 enclosure for a 1tb. which I'm guessing there wouldn't be a noticable speed difference from the internal m.2

One I bought
Intel one I was looking at


With only offering 16gb and the touch screen on the Intel models, it looks like ASUS is gimping their AMD offerings yet again. Doesn't surprise me, back when the original Athlons came out I bought an Asus MB and when I went on Asus's website to get drivers there were none, and nothing anywhere even saying this board existed. It was like they didn't want Intel to know they started making AMD MB's lol. I understand due to the AMD chipset having TB4 might not have been possible, but the rest was intentionally left off.

Oh well, outside of the 8gb I think I'll be very happy with it, and for what I'll use it for 8gb will be fine.

 

[Rigg]

lI'll never get EGPU that was just me talking, I'll always have a desktop and if video cards ever become affordable again I'll buy one. I just ordered the laptop but here are the 2 I was looking at. And I was wrong the Intel one has TB4 ports, but again I don't think the speed over 3.2 gen 2 would be of use to me. I Googled and one of the instances where TB4 would be an advantage is if you have like 3+ external SSD's, which uh yeah I'll never do. I'll probably get a USB C m.2 enclosure for a 1tb. which I'm guessing there wouldn't be a noticable speed difference from the internal m.2

One I bought
Intel one I was looking at


With only offering 16gb and the touch screen on the Intel models, it looks like ASUS is gimping their AMD offerings yet again. Doesn't surprise me, back when the original Athlons came out I bought an Asus MB and when I went on Asus's website to get drivers there were none, and nothing anywhere even saying this board existed. It was like they didn't want Intel to know they started making AMD MB's lol. I understand due to AMD chipsets having TB4 might not have been possible, but the rest was intentionally left off.

Oh well, outside of the 8gb I think I'll be very happy with it, and for what I'll use it for 8gb will be fine.

Yeah, the options and availability suck on the AMD mobile front. It's not just Asus either. Ultimatly getting nearly 2x as much multi-core performance from the 5700U for a pretty modest loss in single thread to the 1135g7 is probably worth it. The 8 gigs of RAM is a bit silly at that price point but it is what it is. I guess we have apple to thank for the soldered RAM trend.

 

[QueBert]

Yeah, the options and availability suck on the AMD mobile front. It's not just Asus either. Ultimatly getting nearly 2x as much multi-core performance from the 5700U for a pretty modest loss in single thread to the 1135g7 is probably worth it. The 8 gigs of RAM is a bit silly at that price point but it is what it is. I guess we have apple to thank for the soldered RAM trend.

Well it is an ultrabook which I know adds to the price and it has OLED, soldered ram seems to be the norm on ultrabooks. All the other brands I was looking at were either way more than I wanted to spend or had a terrible 45-48% NTSC panel. I probably should have ponied up the $100 and just got an M1 Macbook Air, no fan would be pretty damn sweet. Crazy how there's not that much of a price difference between an Air and most of the Windows ultrabooks, some are even more than the Mac. And the Air's builds quality is worlds better. And I doubt this will hold it's resale value well at all so when I want to sell it in a year to get something with 16 gigs I'll be screwed lol.

I also just noticed the Ryzen model has Wifi 5 and the Intel has 6 hummmm. Well at least the m.2's upgradable.

 

[Rigg]

Well it is an ultrabook which I know adds to the price and it has OLED, soldered ram seems to be the norm on ultrabooks. All the other brands I was looking at were either way more than I wanted to spend or had a terrible 45-48% NTSC panel. I probably should have ponied up the $100 and just got an M1 Macbook Air, no fan would be pretty damn sweet. Crazy how there's not that much of a price difference between an Air and most of the Windows ultrabooks, some are even more than the Mac. And the Air's builds quality is worlds better. And I doubt this will hold it's resale value well at all so when I want to sell it in a year to get something with 16 gigs I'll be screwed lol.

I also just noticed the Ryzen model has Wifi 5 and the Intel has 6 hummmm. Well at least the m.2's upgradable.

That does look like a really nice panel. I realize 8gb soldered is pretty standard in this class, I just think its dumb they didn't put 16gb and wifi 6 in there and put that laptop over the top. Hopefully as AMD mobile market share improves this stuff won't be an issue. Either way it looks to be a nice machine.

I'm probably going to grab a macbook air for a dedicated DAW PC when I upgrade my audio recording setup. I'm just waiting for the audio interface compatibility to catch up. Hopefully 16 gb RAM will be standard by that time so I don't have to pay an absurd up-charge.

What I'd really like for my daily driver is a passively cooled x86 laptop I can dual boot windows and linux on. I'm hoping AMD Van Gogh will fit the bill but I'm starting to wonder if this is only going to come to market on handheld gaming devices.

I dropped my MSI i7 4710HQ/970m laptop on the floor the other day and destroyed the screen/bent the chassis. I'm making due on an old 2011 MBP for now but I'm hoping I can grab an affordable Van Gogh based laptop later this year.