AMD Ryzen Lenovo Laptop Linux Performance For Zen 2 / Zen 3 / Zen 3+ / Zen 4

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Ryzen Lenovo Laptop Linux Performance For Zen 2 / Zen 3 / Zen 3+ / Zen 4

With recently picking up the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U and given the recent release of Fedora 39, I found it to be a nice time to provide a Lenovo ThinkPad retrospect of how the AMD Ryzen laptop Linux performance has evolved the past few generations. In today's article is a look at how the AMD Ryzen 7 mobile series laptop performance has evolved going back to Zen 2 for various ThinkPad models while all testing was carried out on the brand new Fedora Workstation 39 Linux release.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-thinkpad-zen2-zen4

[ajboyle]

Very useful article, especially because this compares similar laptops and cores/threads over time. Thank you, Michael.

[spiral_23]

moores law - indeed amd did it! +88% in 3 years. even i write from an hp ***book g8 (tiger lake). i needed avx512 in 2021 - so i couldn't wait for 7th gen ryzen - even my 11th gen ties with the 5th gen ryzen 8 core amd in most benches + avx512 feature set. very sad that intel is actually not able to deliver avx512 in the laptop/desktop consumer/gamer/buisness area.waiting 1 1/2 year more for an upgrade. lets see what happens meanwhile.

[ET3D]

It's interesting that the 6850U is consistently a little slower than the 5850U in the CPU tests.

[Mahboi]

I had no idea Phoenix was such a power hog compared to the rest...
I mean the 12CUs should've been a big hint, but even then, on CPU only workloads, it's more than I expected!

[DarkFoss]

5850U looks broken on those Unigine Superposition OpenGL tests 2.9 and 2.3 fps ouch.

[kylew77]

Very cool article Michael! Thanks! I at the end of last year bought a refurbished Thinkpad with ZEN 2 and thought it was the best laptop ever. I see it is leaving some performance on the table.

[bearoso]

It's interesting that the 6850U is consistently a little slower than the 5850U in the CPU tests.

I think something is set differently in his power configuration for that one. It's benchmarking consistently way more power efficient than the rest, so it's probably not clocking up to it's max. I'm guessing some kind of TDP or PPT cap.

FWIW: It's actually a good thing on AMD CPUs and GPUs to limit the clock a bit below the max and/or undervolt. It takes exponentially more voltage to hit those highest clocks. You can often save half the power with barely no performance difference doing that. Also, if you're like me, it cuts the annoying fan noise down.

[thxcv]

I had no idea Phoenix was such a power hog compared to the rest...
I mean the 12CUs should've been a big hint, but even then, on CPU only workloads, it's more than I expected!

I think it also comes down to different Laptop series used (ideapad v. t14 v. x14 v. p14s), if you look at this test of a Gen3 P14s, you can see that the P14s Gen3 draws 20% more power under load than T14 Gen3.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-P14s-G3-AMD-laptop-review-Lightweight-workstation-without-dGPU.708002.0.html

[agd5f]

The OEM sets the TDP target based on the platform design.