AMD RYZEN 9 5980HS REVIEW: NOTEBOOK CPUS ARE GETTING MORE AND MORE POWERFUL
The world of notebooks is undergoing a non-stop evolution. Only a few years ago to find a desktop replacement you had to go to models weighing over 4 kg, real giants that could only be used at home, also due to a very bad autonomy. Today, technological advancement allows a lot of power to be condensed into a small space, thanks to more efficient architectures both on the GPU and CPU front. Just recently two very important innovations were announced for the near future of the industry, one from NVIDIA, which unveiled the RTX 3000 series notebook GPUs , the other from AMD, which has renewed its range of laptop processors with the Ryzen 5000 series . techsupportreviews
AMD seemed out of the game until recently, butwith the Ryzen
3000 processors it returned to a sector that saw the domain of Intel , and then
also consecrated itself in the high-end with last year's Ryzen 4000 series. Now
the time has come to consolidate further thanks to the Zen 3 architecture,
present in this Ryzen 9 5980HS , a processor with integrated GPU capable of
achieving very high performance.
Comparisons between mobile CPUs? Virtually impossible
Making a judgment on a processor requires repeatable test
methods and conditions. When analyzing a desktop-class CPU, comparisons must be
made on similar hardware platforms, therefore, as far as possible based on the
architecture, the same motherboard, the same RAM and above all the same
dissipation system are used.
This element is fundamental to give a common basis on which
to run the benchmarks, because the clock management algorithms have become more
and more dynamic with the latest processors, a high-end dissipation system
therefore allows to reach and maintain higher clock speeds. and, consequently,
higher test scores.
Unfortunately, these conditions are not applicable in the
notebook field, because the reference platform on which to perform the tests
changes according to the model. The same processor can be declined on different
products, some thinner and lighter and others thicker and heavier, the result
is that the benchmarks carried out on two different notebooks, even with the
same processor, return different values. We made this premise because, when you
observe the benchmark results and the comparison with the other platforms used
in this test, you will have to consider that the scores we obtained are
exclusively associated with the notebook used during this test , the new ROG
Flow X13 , a convertible 2 in 1 with magnesium shell weighing 1.3 kg.
The new Ryzen 5000 processors
AMD has greatly expanded the range of mobile processors
compared to the recent past. The greater complexity can also be seen from the
proposed series, which now become four in all. The " HX " models are
those with the most extreme performance, with a TDP of 45 W and the possibility
of overclocking, offered for the first time by a notebook CPU from AMD. Those
characterized by the abbreviation " HS " instead are designed for
thinner notebooks , as in the case of this ROG Flow X13, equipped with a Ryzen
9 5980HS with a 35 W TPD, while the variants with the abbreviation " H
" are ideal for laptops that focus less on energy efficiency and reduced
thickness, with a TDP of 45 W. Next to these we find the " U series",
which with a TDP of 15 W are designed for notebooks with long autonomy.
The choice of processors, as you can see in the table, has
become much wider and covers different market segments, with solutions from 4
to 8 Cores. , all made at 7 nm and all equipped with Simultaneous
Multithreading , therefore able to double the number of Cores through the use
of logical computing units.
Models with Zen 2 architecture are also available in the
lineup, but the majority have been updated to 'latest Zen 3, introduced with
the 5000 series of desktop processors, therefore able to benefit from the
architectural improvements resulting from this revision.
Zen 3 was designed to improve Single Thread performance,
decrease latency and at the same time increase efficiency . These objectives
were achieved through a faster fetching phase, with an increase in the bandwidth
of the branch predictor, now equipped with a doubled cache, which lowers its
latency.
The new design of the chiplet is also very important, which
allowed to insert up to 8 Cores (with 16 Threads) that can access a shared L3
cache of 16 MB , against the 8 MB of Zen 2, also helping to lower latency.
thanks to faster access to memory. Support for LPDDR4 RAM, also mounted on the
test notebook, increases transmission speed and reduces energy expenditure
compared to common DDR4.
This allows, according to data provided by AMD, to increase
performance in Single Core up to 23%compared to the previous generation, while
the Multi Core ones rose by 17%. At the same time, the integrated Vega
graphics, thanks to the improvements made to the SoC and a higher clock rate,
are now 15% more powerful for the same TDP. In the gaming field, the benefit is
twofold, because higher CPU Single Thread performance leads to higher frame
rates in Full HD. All this, again according to AMD's data, with greater
efficiency, which allows greater autonomy.
Ryzen 9 5980HS to the test
The Ryzen 9 5980H is one of the most powerful mobile
processors we have tested so far. This is immediately understood by the results
of the tests with Cinebench R20 and with CPUz, which return values until recently
associated with desktop CPUs. On Cinebench R20 the Ryzen 9 5890HS achieved 593
points in single core and 4837 in multi core. The Ryzen 9 4900HS, which we
tested in the ROG Zephyrus G14 review , stopped at 450/4030 in their respective
tests. Net of the differences in the dissipation systems between the two
notebooks, which allow only a summary comparison, it is the value in single
core that strikes the most : just think that the Ryzen 9 3900X, still an
excellent desktop processor today, had stopped at 498 points in our tests.
The CPUz test also showed flattering results , reaching 628
points in single core and 5969 points in multi core, where the 4900HS did not
go beyond 517/5253. The leap in performance is evident and marks an important
breaking point with the past.
On the gaming front, to understand the potential of the Vega
GPU we disabled the GTX 1650available in the notebook and used three titles not
very recent but still equipped with an important graphic sector. The ideal
target for this GPU are not triple A, but the world of competitive gaming,
however a good response with the games used in this test makes it obvious the
perfect playability with lighter graphics engines. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider
the internal benchmark scored an average 34 fps at "Low" settings and
Full HD resolution. Moving on to Batman: Arkham Knight, the frame rate is 33
fps, always in Full HD and with details on "Low". The last title
tested is Forza Horizon 4, where the frame rate stopped at 54 always in Full HD
and with the preset on "low". In short, despite the, probably to see
a real change of pace in this aspect we will have to wait for the arrival of
the RDNA 2 architecture also in integrated graphics.
On the temperature front, the Ryzen 9 5890HS remains
stationary at 43 degrees at idle on this ROG Flow X13, which we remember is a
particularly compact notebook , not easy to manage from a thermal point of
view.
We tried to put stress on the processor with a series of
tests on Cinebench R20, without pauses, to understand the influence of thermal
throttling on system performance. On the first run, the frequencies stabilized
at 3.8 GHz across all cores. After five consecutive tests the clock dropped to
3.7 GHz while the temperature reached 95 degrees, the performance degradation
is negligible, the multi core test score only dropped by 100 points.
Reached the eighth consecutive benchmark, we begin to see
the onset of thermal throttling , with the score in the test dropping to 4500
and frequencies of 3.5 GHz on all cores, all with a temperature of 90
degrees.Frequency and score remained the same even after fifteen consecutive
Cinebench R20 cycles , confirming the excellent qualities of the AMD processor
in the tasks in which it must use all its computing units, in addition to those
of the dissipation system of this ROG Flow X13, which together manage well to
withstand prolonged efforts.
