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Notebook processors: Ryzen 4000U outshines 10th generation Core i

In early 2020, AMD unveiled the Ryzen 4000 processor series (code name Renoir), which brings up to eight high-performance Zen-2 cores to the mass-market notebook. The top model Ryzen 9 4900HS has already clearly pointed Intel’s most powerful counterparts to the places in our test. For both processor manufacturers, the H series are not intended for the mass market, but reserved for powerful and expensive gaming notebooks.

Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42)

(Image: c’t)

With the 1.2 kg Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42), the first mainstream notebook with Ryzen 4000U has been available in Germany for a few days. We brought it to the laboratory in two different configurations, namely with the Ryzen 5 4500U and Ryzen 7 4700U.

The two CPUs belong to the U series with nominally 15 watts of waste heat and are therefore basically suitable for flat notebook housings, as are now common. In this context, the peculiarity of the new Ryzens becomes clear: While Intel’s tenth generation Core i processors in the U segment offer almost only four CPU cores, the Ryzen 5 trumps with six and the Ryzen 7 even with eight cores.

This is possible because AMD has the chips manufactured by TSMC with a structure width of 7 nanometers. Intel’s 10-nanometer production – which is roughly on a par with TSMC’s 7-nanometer process in terms of transistor size – continues to be plagued by yield problems, so that the majority of CPUs are still rolling off the assembly line in the older 14-nanometer process. These manufacturing plants are in turn so heavily loaded with mainstream processors that the 14 nanometer top model Core i7-10710U advertised by Intel with six cores actually appears in not even a handful of notebooks, although it would fit in quite a few notebooks.

This leads to the situation that the Ryzen 5 4500U in the Cinebench R20 with more than 1900 points Core i7 models such as the 1065G7 (10 nm) or 10510U (14 nm) clearly leaves behind: They are about the same in most notebooks 1300 points, even with particularly good cooling, 1700 points are not possible. The six-core Core i7-10710U with 12 threads scored almost 2300 points in our tests and thus more than the Ryzen 5 4500U – but the Ryzen 7 4700U is ahead with over 2400 points.

While the i7-10710U is already at the upper limit in the Intel portfolio, there is still room for AMD: Unlike with mobile processors, the two Ryzen 4000 models installed by Acer only execute one instead of two threads per core. With Ryzen 5 4600U and Ryzen 7 4800U, AMD has also presented a six- and eight-core system with activated simultaneous multithreading (SMT). Your performance will not be doubled by SMT, but should still be a good deal higher.


C’t will publish a detailed test of the Acer Swift 3 (SF314-42) in issue 12/2020.


(mue)

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