Info Ryzen 4000 Mobile Chips Unveiled at CES

[guachi]

Acer Swift 3 with Ryzen 7 4700U
AMD Ryzen 4000 Mobile APUs

AMD debuted (finally!) their Ryzen 4000 mobile chips at CES that are confusingly Ryzen 2 CPUs that are analogous with their Ryzen 3000 desktop parts.

I like what I see, especially on the power front. I know many people said that 7nm Ryzen chips had the potential to be very power efficient and if AMD's slide deck is to be believed they have succeeded. Most of the power efficiency has come from the 7nm process. As well, the 7nm process looks to be allowing AMD to cram up to 8 cores onto a laptop chip.

Do you guys think AMD has a product that will be as competitive on the laptop as the 3000 series is on the desktop? I'm thinking that the 4600 will be the best buy like the 3600 is in the desktop space. The problem in the laptop space is AMD needs design wins. At least on the desktop I don't need some company to choose for me, I can just by the chip myself.

 

[darkswordsman17]

It uses the same block as Navi10 w/ updates.

View attachment 16536
Encode h264 up from 205 fps for 1080p and 51 fps for 4K.
Decode is up across as 4K on VCN1 peaked at 60 if not 30.

You're basing that on what? Is that chart just for Navi?

I forget, have they said the new video block is upgradable (can be software updated)? I got the impression that it might be, but that could be entirely wrong. Almost made me wonder if its not possibly somewhat FPGA-like or something (which to me would make more sense, use a common block across generations to maximize compatibility for software, meanwhile they could update it over time; but that's likely mostly wishful thinking on my part).

What about video output (have they talked about HDMI 2.1 or DP 2.0?). Granted they might be looking to give people good reason to update to the next stuff, but it'll be disappointing if they don't support HDMI 2.1 at least. I'd personally love AV1 support, but its likely not going to be a huge deal this year, and the lack of VP9 encode support doesn't leave me optimistic that it'll get quick adoption (I get the impression that AV1 will bring improvements to quality per quantity over HEVC even for 1080p which HEVC didn't seem to really offer especially for the increased processing needed).

I'm hoping that I might be able to get a nice cheap small setup (probably a laptop, but maybe a SFF self-built or if there's a compelling one from an OEM) that could do a solid job of video processing. Hopefully we'll get a good update to the consumer Tegra (and an updated Shield TV). And then I want to at some point build a high core count system (for video editing, and 3D modeling/CAD type stuff). Would then give each a try and see what quality, size, and time I can get via each. The laptop would be nice as I could then do some video stuff on the move (like if I take a trip, I could do quick edit/process although I might would be looking at an iPad Pro, but having two compelling options would be nice). I'd probably lean towards a Shield TV for others (family). Depending, it might change other options (i.e. I might look at a more portable projector in the future when I look to upgrade to a 4K one; LG has one that seems tailored for that use but its more expensive while having some drawbacks compared to a more fixed one). I wish we'd start to get dedicated video processing add-in cards. It'd leave more room for GPUs, would likely be higher quality as well. Plus if they put the display control parts on there it'd free up even more of the GPU die for GPU focused tasks.

 

[uzzi38]

You're basing that on what? Is that chart just for Navi?

Renoir and Navi have the same VCN.

 

[Gideon]

Lenovo accidentally confirms Ryzen 9 4900U demoing new Yoga Slim 14" and 15" models:

Overall the specs between AMD and Intel models seem pretty similar. The battery is quite big (60.7 Wh) and it's awesome that they list the same battery life for both the AMD and the Intel version

 

[Gideon]

And a first Review! It's from an Ukrainian site of a cheap R5 4500U Acer:

Обзор и тестирование ноутбука Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 на базе новейшего шестиядерного процессора AMD Ryzen 5 4500U. Zen 2 для APU

Acer продолжает радовать нас новыми моделями в семействе ультрабуков Acer Swift. Для тех, кто ищет экономичное компактное устройство, компания приготовила сюрприз в виде Swift SF314-42 на базе нового 7-нм процессора AMD Ryzen 5...

translate.google.com

Unfortunately no comparative benchmarks. Perf (including IGP) seems decent. A terrible screen and chasssis, but actually very good battery life. Google Translate quote:

Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 shows excellent battery life. In the PCMark 8 test, the laptop withstood more than 7 hours, and in PCMark 10 all 12 hours. That is, you can work full time from a single charge. PCMark 10 video playback - a little less than 10 hours, but depending on the source and playback mode, the time may be less.

conclusions
Notebook Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 is a great solution for everyday office work. It is lightweight, stylish, cool and quiet - all that an ordinary user needs. This compact model with low weight is perfect for travel and an active lifestyle, when you often change your workplace. And with all these advantages, the Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 provides good performance thanks to the latest cost-effective six-core AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processor. In our configuration, you can only visit a small volume of SSDs, but options with a larger drive are available. The laptop is completely not in the category of gaming devices, but the integrated graphics of AMD Radeon Vega allows you to run popular network projects in Full HD, which is an additional plus. If you want to try out beautiful AAA projects, you will have to play in 720p, and the newest games will come with extremely low fps.

Model	Acer Swift 3 SF314-42
Products webpage	acer.com
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 4500U 2.3 GHz (up to 4000 MHz in Boost mode)
RAM	8 GB, LPDDR4-3200
Display	14 ″, 1920x1080, IPS (AU Optronics B140HAN04.0)
Video card	Radeon Vega 6
Disk subsystem	SSD NVMe M.2 256 GB Samsung MZVLQ256HAJD
Input / output ports	USB 3.2 Gen1 Type A, USB 3.2 Gen2 Type C (DisplayPort and Power Delivery), USB 2.0, HDMI, audio output
Communications	Wi-Fi 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.0
Multimedia	Audio 2.0, 720p webcam
Security	Kensington Fingerprint Reader
Battery, mAh	4343-4471
Power adapter	65
Sizes, mm	323 x 219 x 15.9
Weight kg	1.19
Cost, $	~ 700 *

 

[uzzi38]

And a first Review! It's from an Ukrainian site of a cheap R5 4500U Acer:

Обзор и тестирование ноутбука Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 на базе новейшего шестиядерного процессора AMD Ryzen 5 4500U. Zen 2 для APU

Acer продолжает радовать нас новыми моделями в семействе ультрабуков Acer Swift. Для тех, кто ищет экономичное компактное устройство, компания приготовила сюрприз в виде Swift SF314-42 на базе нового 7-нм процессора AMD Ryzen 5...

translate.google.com

Unfortunately no comparative benchmarks. Perf (including IGP) seems decent. A terrible screen and chasssis, but actually very good battery life. Google Translate quote:

Model	Acer Swift 3 SF314-42
Products webpage	acer.com
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 4500U 2.3 GHz (up to 4000 MHz in Boost mode)
RAM	8 GB, LPDDR4-3200
Display	14 ″, 1920x1080, IPS (AU Optronics B140HAN04.0)
Video card	Radeon Vega 6
Disk subsystem	SSD NVMe M.2 256 GB Samsung MZVLQ256HAJD
Input / output ports	USB 3.2 Gen1 Type A, USB 3.2 Gen2 Type C (DisplayPort and Power Delivery), USB 2.0, HDMI, audio output
Communications	Wi-Fi 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.0
Multimedia	Audio 2.0, 720p webcam
Security	Kensington Fingerprint Reader
Battery, mAh	4343-4471
Power adapter	65
Sizes, mm	323 x 219 x 15.9
Weight kg	1.19
Cost, $	~ 700 *

Judging by the temps and clocks in Aida, I'm willing to bet it's 15W cTDP here. These results are fantastic considering that.

 

[Shivansps]

Lenovo accidentally confirms Ryzen 9 4900U demoing new Yoga Slim 14" and 15" models:

Overall the specs between AMD and Intel models seem pretty similar. The battery is quite big (60.7 Wh) and it's awesome that they list the same battery life for both the AMD and the Intel version

View attachment 16726

Is AMD not allowing U apus to have dGPUS?

 

[yeshua]

The review has already been taken down.

Here's a working URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20200205...ockers.ua/notebook/acer-swift-3-sf314-42/all/

Again some brand horrible RAM: LPDDR4 3200 with 32-29-34-67-101 1T latencies. As bad as it could possibly get.

Battery life is decent:

 

[uzzi38]

Is AMD not allowing U apus to have dGPUS?

Uh no, the other one was Comet Lake-U wasn't it? The NV dGPUs are probably MX stuff, that's all. Guessing they're rebranding the MX350 before launch.

 

[Shivansps]

About the IGP perf of the 4500U, it has half the ROPs and fewer TMUs than the 3200G/3500U Vega 8, as it is, it has lower Texture fill rate than stock 3200G (40 vs 36) and way lower pixel fill rate (20 vs 12), it was not only the CUs that were cut down, but the ROPs/TMU as well. I dont know the arch enoght to know if this was mandatory or not due to CU cut down.

Performance should be about the same, maybe lower than a 2200G stock with DDR4-3200 rams. Is going to perform faster than 3500U due to 3200 vs 2400 rams.

EDIT: OK Vega 3 has 16 ROPs but 12 TMU, so TMU seems to scale with CUs but the ROP has nothing to do with it, so yeah the ROPs is now half in Renoir.

EDIT2: At least in GTA V perf seems to be lower than a 2200G stock. Witcher 3 perf is also lower than a stock 2200G.

I understand this is just a 15W APU but if the 4500U is really hitting those 1500mhz at load this is really bad news for desktops.

 

[vinhom]

More Renoir and other AMD APU micro code enablement in the latest Mac OS betas, Navi 21 and other stuff:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1225377572344733696

https://twitter.com/x/status/1225379681064628224

https://mobile.twitter.com/_rogame/status/1225381275617415168
https://mobile.twitter.com/_rogame/status/1225401494599544834

 

[joesiv]

Um... isn't that a big deal? Has previous AMD APU's shown up in MAC OS before? Is this an indicator that Apple may start using AMD processors in their laptops? Seems like a big deal to me...

 

[jpiniero]

Um... isn't that a big deal? Has previous AMD APU's shown up in MAC OS before? Is this an indicator that Apple may start using AMD processors in their laptops? Seems like a big deal to me...

Been rumored for awhile, but doesn't mean it will actually get into a final product. Given the Intel shortage it would make sense if they were to use Renoir in the 2020 MBP.

 

[uzzi38]

Um... isn't that a big deal? Has previous AMD APU's shown up in MAC OS before? Is this an indicator that Apple may start using AMD processors in their laptops? Seems like a big deal to me...

For a while now, they have. I'd imagine Apple has samples for validation etc, there's no guarantee any of them will beocme products.

 

[lobz]

For a while now, they have. I'd imagine Apple has samples for validation etc, there's no guarantee any of them will beocme products.

Or just makes a move like Microsoft, a product that just makes AMD look bad. Both perf. and value wise. They better get this right if they make this step

 

[moinmoin]

Or just makes a move like Microsoft, a product that just makes AMD look bad. Both perf. and value wise. They better get this right if they make this step

Renoir should do fine. The inclusion of Raven 1 and 2 do surprise me though.

 

[joesiv]

For a while now, they have. I'd imagine Apple has samples for validation etc, there's no guarantee any of them will beocme products.

Ahh, ok. I noticed that sometimes certain navi lite references also come and go throughout beta phases too. Makes sense I guess, evaluating components would require driver support. It's an interesting thought though, having Apple shift over to AMD for CPUs.

Two hurdles I immediately see would be, thunderbolt support (doable now that intel has given the spec away), and supply, I would think Apple would only move to AMD if AMD could guarentee the supply numbers they require, which currently is a problem.

 

[moinmoin]

Two hurdles I immediately see would be, thunderbolt support (doable now that intel has given the spec away), and supply, I would think Apple would only move to AMD if AMD could guarentee the supply numbers they require, which currently is a problem.

Both Apple and AMD are customers of TSMC, so Apple knows what to expect and even has some leverage to make changes to their advantage. Only way I can see supply being an issue is AMD not being able to handle the assembly of their chips at higher quantity.

 

[uzzi38]

I would think Apple would only move to AMD if AMD could guarentee the supply numbers they require, which currently is a problem.

You're thinking about it the wrong way around. AMD would happily ensure supply for Apple if Apple were interested.

TSMC don't have a capacity issue. AMD are playing their wafer orders stupidly safely. They could order way more if they wanted to, but they're playing things safe (for good reason).

 

[joesiv]

You're thinking about it the wrong way around. AMD would happily ensure supply for Apple if Apple were interested.

TSMC don't have a capacity issue. AMD are playing their wafer orders stupidly safely. They could order way more if they wanted to, but they're playing things safe (for good reason).

I was under the impression that wafer supplies were "tight" (Lisa Su said that anyways), 2020 looks like AMD is grabbing a whole bunch of TSMC 7nm capacity since apple is moving from the process leaving more on the table. But AMD is also pushing a lot of new products in 7nm, and trying to fullfill the rise in current product orders.

I just don't think TSMC's capacity is unlimited if AMD were to want it.

Yes AMD would love to have Apple use them as the CPU vendor, but would they do it at the expense of further enterprise/hpc market share growth? You also have to remember that Apple is known to swing they're weight around to get great deals from their suppliers, so margins from an apple deal would likely be much less than enterprice/hpc.

 

[moinmoin]

I was under the impression that wafer supplies were "tight" (Lisa Su said that anyways), 2020 looks like AMD is grabbing a whole bunch of TSMC 7nm capacity since apple is moving from the process leaving more on the table. But AMD is also pushing a lot of new products in 7nm, and trying to fullfill the rise in current product orders.

I just don't think TSMC's capacity is unlimited if AMD were to want it.

Yes AMD would love to have Apple use them as the CPU vendor, but would they do it at the expense of further enterprise/hpc market share growth? You also have to remember that Apple is known to swing they're weight around to get great deals from their suppliers, so margins from an apple deal would likely be much less than enterprice/hpc.

Not this wafer supply stuff again. Previously AMD simply didn't order enough wafers. Like Papermaster said:

"We did have some shortfalls on chips when we first launched our highest performing Ryzens, and that was simply demand outstripping what we had expected and what we had planned for. That wasn’t a TSMC issue at all."

The issue is not one of supply but one of planning and ordering sufficiently ahead. TSMC's lead time for orders is still 6 months. Su's full statement was:

"It is fair to say that wafer supply is tight and so it’s really important for us to be planning with our customers and that’s what we are working on."

Remember TSMC is the company delivering wafers for 100s of millions of mobile phones (annually over 200 millions of iPhones alone). Apple's Mac market is tiny in comparison. TSMC unlikely is the bottleneck here.

 

[joesiv]

Not this wafer supply stuff again. Previously AMD simply didn't order enough wafers. Like Papermaster said:

"We did have some shortfalls on chips when we first launched our highest performing Ryzens, and that was simply demand outstripping what we had expected and what we had planned for. That wasn’t a TSMC issue at all."

The issue is not one of supply but one of planning and ordering sufficiently ahead. TSMC's lead time for orders is still 6 months. Su's full statement was:

"It is fair to say that wafer supply is tight and so it’s really important for us to be planning with our customers and that’s what we are working on."

Remember TSMC is the company delivering wafers for 100s of millions of mobile phones (annually over 200 millions of iPhones alone). Apple's Mac market is tiny in comparison. TSMC unlikely is the bottleneck here.

Lisa said in an interview with Ian that it was tight:

LS: We have great relationship with TSMC – they’ve supported us well, but wafer supply is tight. From our standpoint, we need to ensure that we get that prediction of what the demand will be early. In our desktop lines, when we first launched 3rd Gen Ryzen, there were some areas where we were out of stock at the high-end, particularly on the 3900X and 3950X. Now you’ll see that those CPUs are readily available, through the retailers. So it’s just a matter of when you are early in the cycle, making sure that you can call it correctly. That being the case, I think the technology is working really well, and we’re pleased with how 7nm has ramped for us.

AT: Just to confirm, you said that wafer situation at TSMC was tight, or right?

LS: Tight.

Yes, you're right the lead times are big 6 months (which is huge), and the reason why the lead times are so great, is that wafer supply is tight. There is a lot of customers wanting 7nm from TSMC. Some customers are moving on, like I said, apple being one. Supply isn't unlimited. Actually people expect TSMC's 7nm to be up to 140,000 (from 110,000 last year) wafers per month. AMD is looking to take up 21% of that allocation. Supply is tight, they have to know 6 months or more ahead of time for their orders. And even then, TSMC might not be able to fullfill an order that is significantly larger than was previously forcasted, as there are other customers vying for that supply too. Nvidia is looking to also be using TSMC 7nm as well btw.

Anyways, I'm not saying that AMD is in trouble, they seem to have a really good handle on how to plan for their wafer supply, especially since a lot of their products use the same small wafer, so shifting that inventory around is easy. It'll be harder with several differen 7nm GPU dies, and monalithic mobile dies added to the mix. But they'll manage.

Regarding apples mobile apu's, yeah apples 200 million phone sales is pretty crazy. Though they sell about 20 million MACs in 2019, that's nothing to scoff at. The Ryzen 4000 mobile parts are about twice the size as an A12 bionic die as well, so you'd get less than half as many dies per wafer. I donno, it still seems like a big increase in supply needed to meet a new apple order. I'm all for it though, I think it's the right move, not only for macbooks but also for their mac pro, 64core threadripper, rather than a 28core xenon w? Yes please!

 

[AtenRa]

About the IGP perf of the 4500U, it has half the ROPs and fewer TMUs than the 3200G/3500U Vega 8, as it is, it has lower Texture fill rate than stock 3200G (40 vs 36) and way lower pixel fill rate (20 vs 12), it was not only the CUs that were cut down, but the ROPs/TMU as well. I dont know the arch enoght to know if this was mandatory or not due to CU cut down.

Performance should be about the same, maybe lower than a 2200G stock with DDR4-3200 rams. Is going to perform faster than 3500U due to 3200 vs 2400 rams.

EDIT: OK Vega 3 has 16 ROPs but 12 TMU, so TMU seems to scale with CUs but the ROP has nothing to do with it, so yeah the ROPs is now half in Renoir.

EDIT2: At least in GTA V perf seems to be lower than a 2200G stock. Witcher 3 perf is also lower than a stock 2200G.

I understand this is just a 15W APU but if the 4500U is really hitting those 1500mhz at load this is really bad news for desktops.

TMUs are coupled to the NCU (New Compute Unit) , there are 4x TMUs per NCU.
ROPs are decoupled from the NCU but I believe are coupled to the Shader Engine.

VEGA 20 NCU

Something seems wrong though, AMD says that 4500U GPU has 6x CU , that means 6x 64 = 384 Cores.
Either
1) VEGA 6 has 10 CUs (10x 64 = 640 Cores) ,
2) CUs now have 100 Cores each and not 64 (highly unlikely)
or
3) HWinfo doesnt read the specs correct.

10 CUs also explain the 40x TMUs (4x TMUs per CU).

 

[NostaSeronx]

Ryzen 9 4900u is probably going to be Van Gogh.
Ryzen 3 4200u and Athlon's in 4000 is probably going to be Pollock(Dali Refresh?).

 

[Shivansps]

TMUs are coupled to the NCU (New Compute Unit) , there are 4x TMUs per NCU.
ROPs are decoupled from the NCU but I believe are coupled to the Shader Engine.

VEGA 20 NCU

Something seems wrong though, AMD says that 4500U GPU has 6x CU , that means 6x 64 = 384 Cores.
Either
1) VEGA 6 has 10 CUs (10x 64 = 640 Cores) ,
2) CUs now have 100 Cores each and not 64 (highly unlikely)
or
3) HWinfo doesnt read the specs correct.

10 CUs also explain the 40x TMUs (4x TMUs per CU).

That has to be a misread, performance would be really bad for 640 shaders / 40TMU, this is from the review:

24 TMU / 384 shaders is correct, that is the exact same as the 3300U, but at half the ROPs. Not sure how much the weak pixel fillrate in Renoir is going to affect performance.

 

[Shivansps]

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