Gaming on a Ryzen 9 4900HS Laptop with a Discrete GPU

Following upwardly to our review of AMD's new Ryzen Mobile 4000 laptop CPU and having covered productivity performance and touched on gaming using the integrated GPU in our initial review, now it'southward time to tackle the other master use example for these processors, and that's gaming with a discrete GPU.

This is particularly important for Ryzen H-serial parts equally gaming laptops stick to these 45W-ish processors almost exclusively. We know that AMD has a very compelling part on their easily, with much better efficiency plus better multi-thread and unmarried-thread performance for the well-nigh part, but gaming can frequently be a story of its own. Latencies, heave performance, frequency, tin all play a part, so today we'll exist doing our best to explore how the Ryzen 9 4900HS fares in games.

The biggest challenge for this test was getting an apples-to-apples platform to compare the 4900HS against Intel processors. Our Ryzen 4000 test bed, the Asus Zephyrus G14, comes with a GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q with a 65W power limit, which nosotros haven't seen in whatever other laptops.

We wanted this to exist a completely off-white boxing with the same GPU, merely at to the lowest degree we managed the next best affair. We've put the 4900HS upwards against the closest platform nosotros could find, which is a Core i7-9750H laptop with an RTX 2060 at 80W. Unfortunately nosotros were unable to source an eight-core Intel laptop with the RTX 2060, but that will show easier with the upcoming tenth-gen Intel line-up that features the 8-core Cadre i7-10875H.

As part of today'southward tests, nosotros'll be looking at some 1080p results -- CPU and GPU limited scenarios to run into what the situation is in that location -- then dive into some heavily CPU express gaming at 720p. Along the manner we've tried to do our all-time to look specifically at the impact of the CPU in games. 720p creates a CPU bottleneck with the RTX 2060 in some titles, and that allows u.s.a. to isolate the impact of the CPU.

We know almost people will exist gaming at 1080p, so allow'southward look at that get-go...

Benchmarks

We decided to outset with a few very GPU-limited environments, then we can get a baseline look at the differences between the RTX 2060 Max-Q and the non Max-Q models. Command at 1080p Loftier settings is very GPU demanding and here we see the RTX 2060 performs 9% better than the 2060 Max-Q on average, and 7% better in 1% lows.

Similar story in Metro Exodus: the not Max-Q model ends upwards effectually 7% faster. Information technology has a 23% college power limit and more often than not clocks upwardly to 10% higher in the situations nosotros've seen, and so that'southward our baseline GPU limited performance and then we're all just fully enlightened of the differences we're dealing with.

Allow's get into some less GPU express scenarios with Grand Theft Auto V, which tin become CPU limited with higher power RTX GPUs at 1080p. Still, the RTX 2060 isn't quite powerful enough to deliver a consistent CPU bottleneck, so the Intel organisation with non-Max-Q graphics ends up iii% faster on average. That'south not a bad result given the differences in GPU power, but let'southward motion on.

Watch Dogs 2 is one of the most demanding titles in our examination line-up, hit both the CPU and GPU hard. What nosotros find here is that unlike in our GPU limited situations, the Ryzen 9 4900HS with RTX 2060 Max-Q is marginally alee of the Intel organization with the slower GPU. Nosotros're talking 1% faster here which is margin of error type stuff merely this is definitely a promising issue for AMD's Ryzen APU in gaming.

Star Wars Battlefront Ii is where we start to run into an interesting phenomenon with the Ryzen APU upward against Intel's 9th-gen Core i7 offering. The RTX 2060 arrangement does push out 6% better average frame rates, only with the Intel processor it loses to Ryzen in one% lows. The Ryzen 9 4900HS is able to evangelize 2% improve minimum functioning here and a more stable frame rate, which suggests that in sections of the game that are more than CPU demanding, the 4900HS is able to keep up.

Far Weep five and the Dunia engine is reasonably CPU jump at 1080p with high performance components, not 100% CPU limited but it does benefit from a faster CPU. Again, average frame rates were 6% higher with the Intel configuration that packs a faster GPU, merely Ryzen delivers ameliorate 1% low performance: two% better as we've seen a few times at present.

And we'll proceed seeing situations like this as nosotros movement through the residuum of the games tested. Assassin'due south Creed Odyssey is quite demanding and here nosotros see the largest performance advantage for Ryzen in ane% lows. AMD'southward gaming APU option is 12% better hither, that'south quite a pregnant margin, although once more it loses in terms of average frame rates because we're not fully CPU limited throughout this benchmark pass.

Looking at Hitman 2 and again, similar results here. This is a very CPU demanding title and it appears equally though nigh laptop offerings evangelize around the same functioning, until nosotros get up to the viii-core Cadre i9-9880H which is able to pull abroad with its RTX 2080 Max-Q. I don't want to read too much into those results from a CPU perspective because the GPU differences are quite large.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider performs similarly to Assassin'southward Creed Odyssey in that our AMD laptop is not outright faster in terms of average performance, but it does clock in almost 10% faster in terms of 1% lows. This tin can be a surprisingly CPU intensive title so information technology'due south a stiff consequence for AMD.

Then we get to Resident Evil 2 using the Balanced preset at 1080p. This is one of the few games I tested where the Ryzen organization was outright faster, like several of the games we've looked at today information technology appears to exist more than CPU than GPU limited and so despite the Zephyrus having a weaker GPU it actually performs meliorate in this game thanks to the faster CPU performance available.

And then in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Gild, operation is very similar betwixt the two systems, either option here provides an equivalent experience again in a game that has a decent CPU limitation on it at times.

A brief intermission

At this bespeak, we accept a pretty good picture of how these systems perform. In GPU limited scenarios, the Intel combination pulls ahead due to its faster GPU. Notwithstanding in many games, while boilerplate performance is improve on the Intel side, AMD produces improve 1% low performance, sometimes this is only marginal in the 2-three% better range, other times the results are over 10% in favor of AMD.

There were likewise two games: Sentry Dogs two and Resident Evil 2, where the title was CPU limited enough as a whole at 1080p to deliver better performance on the Ryzen 9 4900HS organization despite its weaker GPU selection.

While these results are a realistic reflection of how these combinations perform, we're not entirely CPU limited in many of these benchmarks. On laptops running at 1080p is a bit of a borderline configuration between a GPU or CPU limit depending on the game and hardware you have. And that's why nosotros wanted to test 720p operation. Allow'due south actually CPU limit these systems and see which configuration stacks up amend when we run into CPU bottlenecks.

Testing at 720p to simulate CPU limited scenarios

In Thousand Theft Auto V, the benchmark pass is fully CPU express at 720p, so we run into a situation where at present, the Ryzen 9 4900HS configuration is 5% faster on average and 10% faster in 1% lows versus the Core i7-9750H. This is a flip on what nosotros had previously at 1080p, where the Intel configuration was faster on average.

We knew previously that Watch Dogs two was CPU limited at 1080p, but the margins do grow marginally at 720p, with the AMD configuration now half dozen% faster on boilerplate at this resolution.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 is a huge swing in favor of AMD at 720p. When we CPU limit the game, the Ryzen 9 4900HS ends up ten to 15 pct faster. And the margins in Fary Cry five? Very similar to Star Wars Battlefront 2 with that 10 to fifteen percent performance advantage for Ryzen.

One of the largest performance advantages for Ryzen that I saw when benchmarking at 720p was in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. In this title, the Ryzen 9 4900HS was over 25% faster when fully CPU express relative to Intel's Core i7-9750H. This is approaching some of the margins nosotros saw when benchmarking multi-core productivity workloads.

Hitman two was slightly faster on our Intel configuration at 1080p, just this changes to be in favor of AMD at 720p. Here the Ryzen 9 4900HS is 8 percent faster on average with like 1% depression performance. Shadow of the Tomb Raider besides flipped to favoring AMD when CPU express, with six% higher average frame rates on the Ryzen ix 4900HS system.

What about Resident Evil 2, a game nosotros saw AMD already perform better in at 1080p? Well at 720p, the margin simply grows, delivering similar results to Odyssey at 720p: over 25% better performance when fully CPU express like this.

In Jedi Fallen Order we see upwards to an xi% operation advantage for the Ryzen 9 4900HS at 720p, which is similar to many of the other titles we've been going through.

What most some of the games we discussed earlier that were more GPU limited at 1080p? Well that remains the case at 720p, games like Metro Exodus and Control still deliver better average performance on our Intel test laptop considering the GPU is pegged at high 90s usage throughout the examination.

We'll drop i more than heavily CPU express game in here before wrapping up this feature...

CS:Become running at 1080p with low settings. The margins here weren't huge between our Intel and AMD configurations, but the Ryzen 9 4900HS did pull 2% ahead on average in this benchmark. Information technology'south no surprise that we're CPU limited hither when running at well above 200 FPS, and these results fit with many of our other CPU limited benchmarks.

Takeaways

That'south a decent clamper of benchmarks looking at a range of test weather condition with… well, the all-time test weather we could manage given the limitations of testing with laptops that vary and so much in hardware. There are some interesting results here to suspension down.

When looking at GPU limited titles, we didn't acquire much. Understandably, the Intel system with its faster RTX 2060 GPU performed ameliorate. This will always be the case when comparison CPUs for gaming: if the title y'all're playing is non limited by the CPU or bottlenecked, so whatever GPU you have is much more than important and becomes the limiting cistron. Then y'all're not going to become better or similar performance out of a Ryzen laptop with a weaker GPU when GPU limited. Makes sense.

Nevertheless in a lot of the games nosotros benchmarked at 1080p with ultra settings, the Ryzen nine 4900HS did produce better 1% low performance than the Core i7-9750H in our Intel system. The departure was only marginal in many cases, 2-three%, merely given our Ryzen laptop was paired with a weaker GPU, this suggests the Ryzen 9 4900HS is more powerful in areas of our criterion passes that are more CPU demanding.

And this follows through to when we're seeing very CPU limited gaming scenarios. A couple of times this was the case at 1080p in games like Sentry Dogs two, Resident Evil ii and CS:Go were all quite CPU limited at 1080p, and in each of these instances the Ryzen 9 4900HS performed improve.

And then at 720p nosotros saw a significant swing in favor of AMD. With many of the titles we looked at becoming totally CPU limited at this resolution, the Ryzen 9 4900HS delivered anywhere from v to upwardly of 25 percent more functioning on average in these games. When combined with the 1% low performance we saw at 1080p, this suggests that the Ryzen 9 4900HS is the faster gaming CPU when the GPU is taken out of the equation.

These results aren't overly surprising when we wait dorsum to our productivity benchmarks. The Ryzen ix 4900HS ended up 5 to xv percent faster in almost unmarried or lightly threaded applications, and we know nearly games these days are still more lightly threaded than heavily multi-threaded. Still, in some of the best case scenarios, like Resident Evil two's 1% low performance at 720p which was 39% higher on Ryzen, nosotros are more in the realm of those multi-thread results.

In that location are plenty of caveats to this testing though. We've stressed the differences in GPU countless times already, but we think the other obvious i is that we're comparison the Ryzen 9 4900HS to the Core i7-9750H. While these CPUs are institute in similarly priced laptops, Intel does have 8-core Cadre i9 processors in their ninth-gen family unit and an upcoming eight-core Core i7 option in their 10th generation. In particular, a function like the Core i7-10875H does produce higher single core frequencies than the 9750H, and so these results might change when we tin can start talking nigh 10th-gen benchmarks and performance.

At the end of the day, what we've learned is that Ryzen 4000 is very capable for mobile gaming. If we had 2 laptops that were otherwise identical aside from the CPU, the Ryzen 9 4900HS should evangelize either an equal or better gaming experience than the Intel Cadre i7-9750H depending on how GPU or CPU limited we are. The more CPU limited, the more than Ryzen benefits relative to the Intel pick.

We recall its reasonably impressive for AMD to jump into this market segment and provide such a competitive alternative against Intel's almost popular 9th-gen gaming laptop CPU. Intel seems to exist laser-focused on frequency, while AMD is catering to that front while delivering killer productivity operation also.

It'due south likewise impressive to see this sort of functioning at 35W, not 45W like with the 9750H we tested. That actress 10W of thermal headroom is crucial while gaming. It could translate into an extra 10W of power allotment bachelor for the GPU in a given design, which in many situations could evangelize v to 10 percent higher frame rates.

All of this sets us up for an interesting battle between Ryzen 4000 APUs and Intel'south 10th-gen H-serial including that new eight-cadre. Stay tuned as new systems keep coming in for more than testing in the weeks ahead.