really disappointed in zen4 APU performance

[tabascosauz]

The initial criticism is 100% relevant though. I often complained about Intel gatekeeping their best iGPUs to pricier SKUs that nobody but Apple and Intel's own NUC carried, which made them useless for a cheaper laptop. Now Intel at least allows (best case):

i7: 96CU Xe, 768 shader
i5: 80CU Xe, 640 shader
i3: 64CU, 512 shader

But with AMD and their even better iGPU:

R7&9: 12CU, 768 shader (Radeon 780)
hi R5: 8CU, 512 shader (Radeon 760)
R3+5: 4CU, 256 shader (babyeon 740)

So the best R5 gets an iGPU that's already cut to the level of something you can get in an i3 Intel CPU and some further cut to half that amount. And that full Radeon 780 iGPU is gatekept behind far better dGPUs as that CPU is only used in dGPU gaming systems. That's a kick in the nuts and I hate it. I started PC gaming on an Intel Iris iGPU NUC and still do some iGPU gaming on occasion so I'm interested in this but more weirdly:

The R7 and 9 iGPU gaming tail that's wagging the dog is Mini PC gaming. There are lots of R7 and R9 Mini PCs with that tasty full Radeon 780 12CU iGPU, while there are like 3 total Mini PCs with mobile dGPUs in them. Totally the reverse of the gaming laptop market. It's strange, man.

That was true of Raptor Lake, but it's already no longer true as of Meteor Lake. The entire -U stack has lost their 80/96EU config and now relegated to 64EU. And to be honest, it was admirable that Intel chose to keep most of the iGPU for its 13th gen stack, but let's be real - 80EU and 96EU was barely able to match and slightly outperform even Vega 8 performance in most laptops, which is not even close to being competitive with 760M and 780M.

Problem for AMD was that most of the entire Phoenix family was just a no-show, and OEMs are taking the (probably deserved) lowest possible effort for the current lowest possible effort family of CPUs (Hawk Point). So Phoenix had a chance to expand adoption of 780M into more affordable ultraportables but essentially was axed the moment it started to bear fruit, and everyone is just sleeping for Hawk Point so no progress has been made.

Here, though, it's probably still single channel DDR5 that's doing in the 740M. Gap isn't super big between Z1 (super binned 7545U) and Z1 Extreme (super binned 7840U) due to 780M wanting more bandwidth than it can get.

 

[Solaris17]

That was true of Raptor Lake, but it's already no longer true as of Meteor Lake. The entire -U stack has lost their 80/96EU config and now relegated to 64EU. And to be honest, it was admirable that Intel chose to keep most of the iGPU for its 13th gen stack, but let's be real - 80EU and 96EU was barely able to match and slightly outperform even Vega 8 performance in most laptops, which is not even close to being competitive with 760M and 780M.

Problem for AMD was that most of the entire Phoenix family was just a no-show, and OEMs are taking the (probably deserved) lowest possible effort for the current lowest possible effort family of CPUs (Hawk Point). So Phoenix had a chance to expand adoption of 780M into more affordable ultraportables but essentially was axed the moment it started to bear fruit, and everyone is just sleeping for Hawk Point so no progress has been made.

Here, though, it's probably still single channel DDR5 that's doing in the 740M. Gap isn't super big between Z1 (super binned 7545U) and Z1 Extreme (super binned 7840U) due to 780M wanting more bandwidth than it can get.

what? the alchemist igpu is a strong contender.

Intel Meteor Lake Arc Graphics: A Fantastic Upgrade, Battles AMD RDNA3 Integrated Graphics Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[tabascosauz]

what? the alchemist igpu is a strong contender.

Intel Meteor Lake Arc Graphics: A Fantastic Upgrade, Battles AMD RDNA3 Integrated Graphics Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

I wasn't talking about 128EU MTL, I was talking about 80EU/96EU RPL for Vega 8 performance. All MTL-U CPUs lose half of the iGPU for 64EUs, although I'm sure better arch makes it faster than 13th gen.

And it should be a strong contender, it's being compared to 780M in the 7840U. 155H PL2 is like 110W, max package power for 7840U is like 25-30W, and 780M only reaches max performance in or beyond 7940HS power envelope (35W+).

 

[Solaris17]

I wasn't talking about 128EU MTL, I was talking about 80EU/96EU RPL for Vega 8 performance. All MTL-U CPUs lose half of the iGPU for 64EUs, although I'm sure better arch makes it faster than 13th gen.

And it should be a strong contender, it's being compared to 780M in the 7840U. 155H PL2 is like 110W, max package power for 7840U is like 25-30W, and 780M only reaches max performance in or beyond 7940HS power envelope (35W+).

oh sorry sorry your right. yes the older XE (non dg) is legit terrible.

 

[Space Lynx]

I don't understand. You bought a laptop with a weak iGPU, and now you're complaining that the iGPU is weak?

I already said I made a mistake in post number 13

my laptop was 299€ (literally the cheapest crap that has an IPS Panel)
It's a 7520U with two 4GB 5500 LPDDR5 Modules soldered in one channel.

7520u (neither can the 7530u, I tried it already) can't do virtual backgrounds on Zoom, which is a requirement I need for my laptop. Zoom says they are not powerful enough when you go to enable virtual background during a Zoom session.


@tabascosauz the 7540u is just released I believe, not sure of model, but I have an HP model. It's not the end of the world. most likely still going to keep this laptop for work, part of me kind of wishes I paid an extra $150 for the m1 macbook air though, as this is for work not gaming anyway. /shrug oh well

 

[Zareek]

this is just sad how bad AMD cut it down just to please their stack. its pathetic you can't buy a 7840u by itself for 500 bucks in laptop form. every single manufacturer forces you to pair it with dedicated GPU or an OLED screen dramatically rising the cost and portability factor cause of the power brick that gets introduced too. free markets my ass. huge missed opportunity AMD.

I recently started looking for a basic laptop with a 7840 or 8840 in any TDP flavor, and was surprised how few were available without a dGPU. I agree, AMD needs to find a way to offer lower processing power with the better iGPU. We don't need 8 core CPUs to play old games on an iGPU.

 

[Space Lynx]

I recently started looking for a basic laptop with a 7840 or 8840 in any TDP flavor, and was surprised how few were available without a dGPU. I agree, AMD needs to find a way to offer lower processing power with the better iGPU. We don't need 8 core CPUs to play old games on an iGPU.

see my post here: it is very frustrating 7840u can enter $499 budget handhelds but not a budget laptop.

Orange Pi Neo Launched in China - $599 & $499 Price Points Unveiled

The Orange Pi Neo handheld gaming PC was first exhibited in Europe earlier in the year—where the Manjaro Linux team handed out demo units to attendees of FOSDEM. The initial batch of Orange Pi Neo handhelds were specced with AMD's ubiquitous Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" mobile APU, but a recent...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[BSim500]

I recently started looking for a basic laptop with a 7840 or 8840 in any TDP flavor, and was surprised how few were available without a dGPU. I agree, AMD needs to find a way to offer lower processing power with the better iGPU. We don't need 8 core CPUs to play old games on an iGPU.

see my post here: it is very frustrating 7840u can enter $499 budget handhelds but not a budget laptop.

Completely agree with you both. We went through the same thing last Christmas where two relatives needed two laptops. One wanted a decent gaming laptop, the other wanted a 65w max thin & light laptop with no dGPU (that forces a 180w house-brick sized PSU on top of being bulkier) but still wanted to play lightweight Indie games like Terraria, Don't Starve, Banished, etc. There was a severe, extreme drought of sanely priced non-gaming "mid-tier" laptops that came with actually decent uncrippled high-end iGPU's. It's AMD's constant crippling of the lower tiers to the point of worthlessness that kills it. 780M = 12 EUs / 768 shaders. 760M = 8 EU's / 512 shaders. Drop down to the 740M and you're down to just 4 functioning EU's / 256 shaders...

Limiting the "unlocked" 12/12EU decent 780M just to Ryzen 7's means it ends up only in 4-digit price tier HP EliteBooks, Lenovo Thinkpad's, etc, that in many cases were £200-£300 more expensive than the budget gaming laptops ( Lenovo LOQ, HP Victus, etc) with RTX 3050M/3060M dGPU's, and barely £300-£400 less than the premium gaming ones. The relative who wanted a gaming laptop laughed at the sorry state of high end APU laptop "offerings" and just paid extra for a Legion with dGPU. The relative who wanted a non-gaming laptop but also to play some games bought an i5-1335U powered Thinkbook for £600 instead of a 7840U Thinkpad for £1200 (only one with 7840U at the time) and the Xe 80 still ran all desired lightweight / older games at 1200p @ 60fps just fine.

We all get that AMD want to make a profit after years of being behind but +£600 is pretty absurd premium just to upgrade a non-gaming laptop from a £70 GT1030 (Intel Xe 80/96) to £150 GTX 1650 (780M) equivalent level of iGPU performance. AMD also need to move beyond "our idea of budget laptop iGPU = dump a seemingly unending sh*tload of old Zen 2 Vega chips on the market even in 2024"...

 

[Chrispy_]

it's the 7540u not the 7640u I had it wrong.

no its not power throttling, its just a cut down version of an already cut down version... couldn't find any reviews of it when I got it. but I was like well its zen4 4nm node, it will be fine. and yeah its not fine. its a scam. absolute joke it cant even run company of heroes properly. that game is ancient.

Oh right, the 7540U is bottom-of-the-barrely graphics, held back even further by a low power budget of 15W, typically.

If your laptop has the lowest-end 75xx APU in it, there's a non-zero chance it's also running a bottom-of-the-barrel RAM configuration (single-channel, low frequency). Doing that to a weak APU is like entering a Toyota Prius into an F1 race, and then filling it with bricks just to make it even slower.

In terms of gaming on cheaper laptops, I think you have to choose thin+light, or gaming - because the only decent APUs with 12CU graphics are all premium ultraportables with $2500 price tags, wafer-thin chassis with zero proper cooling and ridiculous OLED screens. I ended my 3 attempts to get a decent gaming APU laptop after 2700U, 4800U, 6800U, and now I just have a 16" Legion 7S which is admittedly bigger, but not by too much - and it has a 6700S in it which is basically a desktop RX 6600 8GB. Not fantastic, but absolutely capable of any and all gaming (currently replaying CP2077 with Phantom Liberty at 1440p with a bit of balanced FSR to hit 60-70fps at highish settings).

 

[R-T-B]

COH? I remember nothing on earth back in the day could really get 60FPS plus in that game if you turned DX10 on, and it added very little. Maybe try turning that off and see if you get a better result? It's DX10 mode is really inefficient.

Yeah, I know that's not going to fix the core horsepower issue, just some friendly advice.

 

[Space Lynx]

Oh right, the 7540U is bottom-of-the-barrely graphics, held back even further by a low power budget of 15W, typically.

If your laptop has the lowest-end 75xx APU in it, there's a non-zero chance it's also running a bottom-of-the-barrel RAM configuration (single-channel, low frequency). Doing that to a weak APU is like entering a Toyota Prius into an F1 race, and then filling it with bricks just to make it even slower.

When I bought it I thought it was a lower clocked 7640u, but had the 8 CU's of graphics that the 7640u has. I just wasn't paying attention so it's my fault.

 

[Chrispy_]

When I bought it I thought it was a lower clocked 7640u, but had the 8 CU's of graphics that the 7640u has. I just wasn't paying attention so it's my fault.

Technically yes, it's your fault.

My opinion; Intel and AMD make up these ever-changing utter bullshit naming schemes with mobile parts to try and pass off old shit and low-end junk as better-tier parts. That's the ONLY reason the naming of mobile parts is such a fustercluck.

AMD are probably worse than Intel in this regard, because at least with an Intel IGP you know you're getting a turd no matter what, which actually simplifies things slightly. For AMD, you have to use this list:

List of AMD Ryzen processors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The eternal problem with APUs: You're going to pay top dollar for the best CPU bin only to end up with the bottom of the dGPU stack in terms of GPU performance.

If we got a 6/12 CPU with the 12CU IGP (and proper dual channel RAM or at least the ability to expand to dual channel) for $150(or whatever the laptop equivalent would be) then we'd be onto something.

But no, you have to get 8/16 and pay $350 to get the 12CU bin for $350 (or whatever marked-up premium laptops go for nowadays). A mid-range CPU + Entry level dGPU (or equivalent gaming laptop) will still stomp the iGP system in price and performance every time.

 

[SL2]

see my post here: it is very frustrating 7840u can enter $499 budget handhelds but not a budget laptop.

If it did, why would anyone buy a lower end CPU? $500 is low end, 7840U isn't. Comparing with handhelds doesn't really help, different markets even if same chip.

 

[GhostRyder]

Yea, it really is unfortunate as I feel the same way. I no longer really need a gaming laptop with a high end GPU and want something more portable. I may still buy a Framework 16 at some point but I keep thinking I want to go a bit smaller.

One of the only options I sortta liked was this one (At least without breaking the bank).
ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 16" Laptop AMD Ryzen 7 with 16GB Memory 1 TB SSD Indie Black M1605YA-ES74 - Best Buy

Its really a shame we don't get some better high end APU options in smaller form factors.

 

[Space Lynx]

Yea, it really is unfortunate as I feel the same way. I no longer really need a gaming laptop with a high end GPU and want something more portable. I may still buy a Framework 16 at some point but I keep thinking I want to go a bit smaller.

One of the only options I sortta liked was this one (At least without breaking the bank).
ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 16" Laptop AMD Ryzen 7 with 16GB Memory 1 TB SSD Indie Black M1605YA-ES74 - Best Buy

Its really a shame we don't get some better high end APU options in smaller form factors.

the link you give there, was APU is it using? I clicked show full system specs and it still doesn't give exact spec of cpu.

 

[tabascosauz]

Yea, it really is unfortunate as I feel the same way. I no longer really need a gaming laptop with a high end GPU and want something more portable. I may still buy a Framework 16 at some point but I keep thinking I want to go a bit smaller.

One of the only options I sortta liked was this one (At least without breaking the bank).
ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 16" Laptop AMD Ryzen 7 with 16GB Memory 1 TB SSD Indie Black M1605YA-ES74 - Best Buy

Its really a shame we don't get some better high end APU options in smaller form factors.

7730U is Barcelo - rebranded Cezanne with Vega 8. So 5700G but slightly slower, a recycled Q1 2021 laptop.

If you want capable yet reasonably affordable, I think 7735U/7735HS is the closest you can get right now, in certain models of the Zenbook 15. Rebranded Rembrandt 6800U/HS, with the 12CU 680M. Shouldn't be much more than the price on the 16, and I'm pretty sure has a 90Hz or 120Hz panel, can't remember. Rembrandt generation must be 680M though, the only other choice (660M) is crippled hard enough to bring it down to Vega 8 performance.

Asus 14 and 16" Zenbooks are rife with the 7730U which at this point should just be avoided. Sure, Vega 8 isn't the worst on performance but it's hella old and at that point I would just take an Intel 13th gen -U. Newer arch is valuable in an iGPU.

 

[Space Lynx]

7730U is Barcelo - rebranded Cezanne with Vega 8. So 5700G but slightly slower, a recycled Q1 2021 laptop.

If you want capable yet reasonably affordable, I think 7735U/7735HS is the closest you can get right now, in certain models of the Zenbook 15. Rebranded Rembrandt 6800U/HS, with the 12CU 680M. Shouldn't be much more than the price on the 16, and I'm pretty sure has a 90Hz or 120Hz panel, can't remember.

Asus 14 and 16" Zenbooks are rife with the 7730U which at this point should just be avoided. Sure, Vega 8 isn't the worst on performance but it's hella old and at that point I would just take an Intel 13th gen -U.

I found a used raptor lake i3 locally for $220. looks like a decent laptop, going to have them test to see if virtual background on zoom works, if it does i am going to get that and take zen4 back, its just not worth more than double the price.

the i3 raptor lake has 64 execution units on the igpu, which is not too bad at all really.

 

[BSim500]

Asus 14 and 16" Zenbooks are rife with the 7730U which at this point should just be avoided. Sure, Vega 8 isn't the worst on performance but it's hella old and at that point I would just take an Intel 13th gen -U. Newer arch is valuable in an iGPU.

Indeed. Looking forward, I wouldn't buy any new laptop that didn't have AV1 hardware decoding even without gaming entering the equation.

 

[LabRat 891]

It's the U-SKU + whatever bare minimums cooling the manufacturer implemented.

I 'rebuilt' an R5 3500u Acer Aspire w/ some Nitro parts, and using some software to reconfigure TDP, (along w/ a 'yeet mode' 100% fan switch) I could get ~+100% performance improvement.

The issue: The laptop's power circuitry was too weak.
No overheating or other 'exciting' problems. It just cannot run under load w/o draining the battery (while plugged in).

TBQH, I've been irritated about Zen on mobile:
No one seems to make an H or HS SKU laptop w/ good cooling and no dGPU.

 

[Chrispy_]

If we got a 6/12 CPU with the 12CU IGP (and proper dual channel RAM or at least the ability to expand to dual channel) for $150(or whatever the laptop equivalent would be) then we'd be onto something.

But no, you have to get 8/16 and pay $350 to get the 12CU bin for $350 (or whatever marked-up premium laptops go for nowadays). A mid-range CPU + Entry level dGPU (or equivalent gaming laptop) will still stomp the iGP system in price and performance every time.

The problem is the binning.

The 12CU IGP is the larger part of the die area. If you google "AMD Phoenix die shot" you can make out the cores and (quads of) Radeon CUs and each CU quad takes up far more space than a CPU core. If there is a defect in the silicon, it's statistically more probably that the defect is in an IGP part than a CPU core part. That translates to it being statistically more probable that AMD will get full 8-core CPUs with IGP defects than full 12CU IGPs with CPU defects.

It's likely some 6C/12CU parts do exist from the binning process but probably in much smaller numbers, not enough to make a whole SKU out of it, so those just get added to the 6C/8CU bins instead. Add to that the problem that your average buyer doesn't even know what or why they need graphics processing and it's probably too small a demographic to bother with.

 

[mechtech]

Get Terraria.

Don't need anything else

 

[Zareek]

see my post here: it is very frustrating 7840u can enter $499 budget handhelds but not a budget laptop.

Orange Pi Neo Launched in China - $599 & $499 Price Points Unveiled

The Orange Pi Neo handheld gaming PC was first exhibited in Europe earlier in the year—where the Manjaro Linux team handed out demo units to attendees of FOSDEM. The initial batch of Orange Pi Neo handhelds were specced with AMD's ubiquitous Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" mobile APU, but a recent...

www.techpowerup.com

It's got to be on these OEMs too. If they can sell this for $700 with a 3050, then why not make a $600 version without the 3050? I refuse to put more money in Nvidia's pockets, so the 3050 makes it a no-go for me.

Best Buy - Lenovo - LOQ 15.6" Gaming Laptop FHD - AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS with 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 6GB - 512GB SSD - Storm Grey $699.99

 

[Space Lynx]

It's got to be on these OEMs too. If they can sell this for $700 with a 3050, then why not make a $600 version without the 3050? I refuse to put more money in Nvidia's pockets, so the 3050 makes it a no-go for me.

Best Buy - Lenovo - LOQ 15.6" Gaming Laptop FHD - AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS with 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 6GB - 512GB SSD - Storm Grey $699.99

i was looking at this earlier today and considering it. i seen the 4060 as low as 749 with a 7840hs before though, so this is still a bad deal compared to that one. lenovo does have good screens though. i still find it hard to trust Lenovo though as a company, link below

Bought a Lenovo recently? Enjoy the pre-loaded Malware!

A vulnerability has been discovered in a piece of software that ships pre-loaded onto Lenovo computers that could grant hackers access to a user's secure browser data, allowing third parties to potentially collect passwords, bank details, and other sensitive information. Superfish, an adware...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[tabascosauz]

TBQH, I've been irritated about Zen on mobile:
No one seems to make an H or HS SKU laptop w/ good cooling and no dGPU.

They do exist, but I think you are implying an additional hidden "affordable" qualifier to that statement

Tuxedo Pulse 14 Gen3 review - The Linux Ultrabook with AMD Zen4 and a 120-Hz display - NotebookCheck.net Reviews
Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 14 G8 laptop review - AMD Zen4 isn’t automatically better - NotebookCheck.net Reviews
ASUS ROG Flow X13 13.4" Touchscreen Gaming Laptop 1920 x 1200 FHD AMD Ryzen 9 with 16GB Memory 512GB SSD Off Black GV302XA-X13.R9512 - Best Buy
Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 14AHP9 laptop review - The powerful ultraportable with Ryzen 8000 and 120-Hz OLED - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

For mobile standards, the cooling is just fine on those. -HS has a high short term power limit, so unlike -U, Intel-esque power behaviour is to be expected.