AMD Ryzen 7 8840U "Hawk Point" APU Exceeds Expectations in 10 W TDP Gaming Test

[T0@st]

AMD Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" mobile processors continue to roll out in all sorts of review sample guises—mostly within laptops/notebooks and handheld gaming PC segments. An example of the latter would be GPD's Hawk Point-refreshed Win Max 2 model—Cary Golomb, a tech reviewer and self-described evangelist of "PC Gaming Handhelds Since 2016" has acquired this device for benchmark comparison purposes. A Ryzen 7 8840U-powered GPD Win Max 2 model was pitched against similar devices that house older Team Red APU technologies. Golomb's collection included Valve's Steam Deck LCD model, and three "Phoenix" Ryzen 7840U-based GPD models. He did not have any top-of-the-line ASUS or Lenovo handhelds within reach, but the onboard Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU is a close relative of 7840U.

Golomb's social media post included a screenshot of a Batman: Arkham Knight "average frames per second" comparison chart—all devices were running on a low 10 W TDP setting. The overall verdict favors AMD's new Hawk Point part: "Steam Deck low TDP performance finally dethroned...GPD continues to make the best AMD devices. 8840U shouldn't be better, but everywhere I'm testing, it is consistently better across every TDP. TSP measuring similar." Hawk Point appears to be a slight upgrade over Phoenix—most of the generational improvements reside within a more capable XDNA NPU, so it is interesting to see that the 8840U outperforms its predecessor. They both sport AMD's Radeon 780M integrated graphics solution (RDNA 3), while the standard/first iteration Steam Deck makes do with an RDNA 2-era "Van Gogh" iGPU. Golomb found that the: "three other GPD 7840U devices behaved somewhat consistently."



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[Patriot]

I think impresses should just be, improves...

 

[Philaphlous]

Ahead of Intel but still a long way to go to catch up to Apple... I think AMD is on the right track but between the 7*** and 8*** barely any noticeable difference...

 

[AnotherReader]

Ahead of Intel but still a long way to go to catch up to Apple... I think AMD is on the right track but between the 7*** and 8*** barely any noticeable difference...

Apple uses a large cache for their IGP. If AMD used that, they would do better.

 

[Space Lynx]

I think impresses should just be, improves...

only 3 fps faster than steam deck APU... how is that impressive or improve? lol

unless I read something wrong...

 

[Cheeseball]

Make sure to add the follow up as he recently re-tested the Steam Deck OLED with SteamOS 3.6/Mesa 24:

 

[Space Lynx]

Make sure to add the follow up as he recently re-tested the Steam Deck OLED with SteamOS 3.6/Mesa 24:

View attachment 335735

I have to admit, I am really confused how a zen 2 even on steam deck is beating zen 4 at the same wattage.

I mean it makes me happy, cause I am a Steam Deck fanboy, just confuses me lol

 

[Durvelle27]

It’s really not that impressive. I feel AMD need to focus on better IGP performance than anything else. Efficiency is already there and with DDR5 bandwidth shouldn’t be a limitation like DDR3 and DDR4

 

[Nostras]

Uh, am I blind or is no one addressing the memory speeds? It's noticeably missing and could very well explain the performance difference.

 

[Cheeseball]

I have to admit, I am really confused how a zen 2 even on steam deck is beating zen 4 at the same wattage.

I mean it makes me happy, cause I am a Steam Deck fanboy, just confuses me lol

4C/8T/8CUs vs 8C/16T/12CUs really

The Sephiroth APU in the Steam Deck OLED is able to utilize the 10W TDP effectively unlike on the 8C 7840U/8840U where it has to still share power with those 4 extra cores which most games still don't really need yet. That power could be better used on the iGPU instead.

If you have a Legion Go (since it's the only Ryzen Z1 Extreme device that allows you to disable the cores in the BIOS), you can test this theory by setting it to 4C/8T. I get an extra hour of battery life, the APU is not running as hot and the iGPU is able to get more power (if I'm running at 20+ W TDP). I still can't match the efficiency of the Sephiroth APU but it can get close.

If they had used Zen 4 cores and RDNA3 in the same 4C/8T/8CU configuration, then you will definitely see huge gains compared to Aerith/Sephiroth, since power can be allocated to just those 4 CPU cores and 8 GPU CUs.

 

[Nostras]

4C/8T/8CUs vs 8C/16T/12CUs really

The Sephiroth APU in the Steam Deck OLED is able to utilize the 10W TDP effectively unlike on the 8C 7840U/8840U where it has to still share power with those 4 extra cores which most games still don't really need yet. That power could be better used on the iGPU instead.

If you have a Legion Go (since it's the only Ryzen Z1 Extreme device that allows you to disable the cores in the BIOS), you can test this theory by setting it to 4C/8T. I get an extra hour of battery life, the APU is not running as hot and the iGPU is able to get more power (if I'm running at 20+ W TDP). I still can't match the efficiency of the Sephiroth APU but it can get close.

Couldn't you just park the cores instead so that you can use the 8 cores when you still need it? Or is the difference noticeable?

 

[Cheeseball]

Couldn't you just park the cores instead so that you can use the 8 cores when you still need it? Or is the difference noticeable?

Apparently the difference is noticeable. I know the APUs are monolithic (compared to disabling CCXs on the desktop CPUs) but disabling the cores in the BIOS seems to reduce power consumption compared to trying to park them using msconfig.exe or other software. I am getting better battery life on my Legion Go compared to the stock 8C/16T configuration.

I just wish ASUS would do the same and allow the cores to be disabled on their ROG Ally, through the BIOS or Armory Crate SE.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

4C/8T/8CUs vs 8C/16T/12CUs really

The Sephiroth APU in the Steam Deck OLED is able to utilize the 10W TDP effectively unlike on the 8C 7840U/8840U where it has to still share power with those 4 extra cores which most games still don't really need yet. That power could be better used on the iGPU instead.

If you have a Legion Go (since it's the only Ryzen Z1 Extreme device that allows you to disable the cores in the BIOS), you can test this theory by setting it to 4C/8T. I get an extra hour of battery life, the APU is not running as hot and the iGPU is able to get more power (if I'm running at 20+ W TDP). I still can't match the efficiency of the Sephiroth APU but it can get close.

If they had used Zen 4 cores and RDNA3 in the same 4C/8T/8CU configuration, then you will definitely see huge gains compared to Aerith/Sephiroth, since power can be allocated to just those 4 CPU cores and 8 GPU CUs.

I’m think you’re on to something here. I wonder if you did 6C with no SMT? I do agree 8C is not exactly balanced for low TDP gaming. Seems they could salvage dies that pass the full GPU but 2 cores fail.

 

[Cheeseball]

I’m think you’re on to something here. I wonder if you did 6C with no SMT? I do agree 8C is not exactly balanced for low TDP gaming. Seems they could salvage dies that pass the full GPU but 2 cores fail.

I have not tested that configuration yet, but I'll give it a go when I'm done with work.

 

[SNESChalmers]

I’m think you’re on to something here. I wonder if you did 6C with no SMT? I do agree 8C is not exactly balanced for low TDP gaming. Seems they could salvage dies that pass the full GPU but 2 cores fail.

I think ideally for a future handheld gaming APU the core configuration might be 2 Zen 5 core and 4 Zen 5c cores and 12 CUs as a Z2 Extreme and 1+4 with 8 CUs as a Z2. There's some precedent from AMD already, it's a close configuration to the Phoenix 2 die, (but with more CUs). Maybe even 1+3 could be viable, even heavily multithreaded games really only hit a single core hard.

I have not tested that configuration yet, but I'll give it a go when I'm done with work.

If you're so inclined, would you also try 1 core allowed to boost normally and then lock 4 cores at something modest like 2.5GHz and disable the remainder?

 

[user556]

Or just drop the Zen standard cores and have four Zen5C only. AMD's C cores, unlike Intel's E cores, are a perfect fit for tight power budgets. They're fully fledged cores.

 

[Cheeseball]

I think ideally for a future handheld gaming APU the core configuration might be 2 Zen 5 core and 4 Zen 5c cores and 12 CUs as a Z2 Extreme and 1+4 with 8 CUs as a Z2. There's some precedent from AMD already, it's a close configuration to the Phoenix 2 die, (but with more CUs). Maybe even 1+3 could be viable, even heavily multithreaded games really only hit a single core hard.


If you're so inclined, would you also try 1 core allowed to boost normally and then lock 4 cores at something modest like 2.5GHz and disable the remainder?

Unfortunately, the BIOS/UEFI on the Legion Go is not as robust as a desktop AMD motherboard where you can set individual core settings. I can only change the number of active cores (choices limited to 4, 6 and 8) and enabling/disabling SMT. Additionally, I can change the LPDDR5X speed to either 6400 or 7500.

I’m think you’re on to something here. I wonder if you did 6C with no SMT? I do agree 8C is not exactly balanced for low TDP gaming. Seems they could salvage dies that pass the full GPU but 2 cores fail.

Testing this now:

 

[Space Lynx]

looking forward to your update on it

 

[evernessince]

4C/8T/8CUs vs 8C/16T/12CUs really

The Sephiroth APU in the Steam Deck OLED is able to utilize the 10W TDP effectively unlike on the 8C 7840U/8840U where it has to still share power with those 4 extra cores which most games still don't really need yet. That power could be better used on the iGPU instead.

If you have a Legion Go (since it's the only Ryzen Z1 Extreme device that allows you to disable the cores in the BIOS), you can test this theory by setting it to 4C/8T. I get an extra hour of battery life, the APU is not running as hot and the iGPU is able to get more power (if I'm running at 20+ W TDP). I still can't match the efficiency of the Sephiroth APU but it can get close.

If they had used Zen 4 cores and RDNA3 in the same 4C/8T/8CU configuration, then you will definitely see huge gains compared to Aerith/Sephiroth, since power can be allocated to just those 4 CPU cores and 8 GPU CUs.

I believe there's actually a high yield video on this very topic. If I remember correctly, cutting down uncore and SOC IO to just the bare minimum gives them a larger power budget to share between the GPU and CPU. That's one of the advantages of a custom product I suppose, no need for unnecessary inclusion. Bold of valve IMO given they likely invested a lot in co-designing it with AMD for what could have been a flop like the steam machines.

 

[Minus Infinity]

This gen doesn't impress me at all. Hopefully Strix Point is a huge leap with it's RDNA 3.5 iGPU and support for higher DDR5 speeds. Would love to see a 6 core version that still has the full phat iGPU rather than needing to get the 12 core version.

 

[A&P211]

Ahead of Intel but still a long way to go to catch up to Apple... I think AMD is on the right track but between the 7*** and 8*** barely any noticeable difference...

Apple has their own closed out world. Cant compare both of them.

 

[Keullo-e]

I don't even keep up with all these mobile chips especially when they've named to look like they're a totally new generation. I know that AMD has been doing that since the first gen Ryzen mobile APUs, but the product stack is way more confusing these days.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I don't even keep up with all these mobile chips especially when they've named to look like they're a totally new generation. I know that AMD has been doing that since the first gen Ryzen mobile APUs, but the product stack is way more confusing these days.

I’d agree, there is definitely a lot of gamesmanship with the naming on these products. It takes a bit of effort to figure out if what you’re buying is actually a new generation or just a rebadge. Take the 7735U. You’d think by looking at the name, it’s a slower version of the current gen 7840U, but it’s basically a last-gen rebranded 6800U. Maybe the average person wouldn’t care, but if you’re wanting something specific, it takes some extra thinking before you buy.