I know OEMs were surprised by how Ryzen 4000 APU's performed and how much consumers actually liked and wanted it, and most of them didn't have anytime to tweak their special intel designs to use this new chip.
But, seriously, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, XPS 15/17 and the MBP 16 are just few of the laptops I really wish to have a Ryzen 4000H series APU's inside them. Even thought with the rumours Apple is moving away from x86, it's hard to think they will do another jump in the short term. intel made them sick of x86 and they already love depending and developing everything by them selfs to control everything.
I wonder when did AMD start to sample Ryzen 4000 APU to OEMs... probably in Q2 2019? not sure if "surprise" is the right term, rather fear of disturbing Intel
I'd guess the lack of PCIe lanes did this one in, for high end laptops. Old APUs were 12 lanes, and nobody is speaking about the lane count on newer ones. Even if we add another 4, we have to split it amongst: GPU, NVMe (2 of them, in the X1 Extreme), Thunderbolt 3, SD (fast ones, anyways), WiFi, GbE LAN (the X1E and P1 still include an internal NIC and use a breakout cable), etc. With the Intel H series, you have 16 lanes from the CPU + whatever amount from the southbridge. AMD doesn't use a southbridge, so that's all you get. It's not even a bandwidth question at this stage, rather "will I have enough PCIe ports to even connect all of the onboard devices?"
Speaking of bandwidth, eGPUs have shown bandwidth scaling is a problem at x4, especially if you pump the video frames back over the PCIe bus (muxless Optimus). This means x8 is basically the minimum for any GPU worth putting in a laptop.
After all is said and done, AMD just needs more onboard interfaces. Their SERDES can already handle 10GbE, but it's never exposed for anything outside of the D series CPUs.
For laptops without dGPU options, who knows? IMO, AMD should have focused there, and created actually useful reference platforms and provided engineering support. The whole APU H series targets and plans, all seemed like a mistake to me. Only one laptop even implemented Smartshift, and it is a vastly inferior laptop that has no headroom for smartshift to operate in.
I don't think that Renoir is particularly hurting for PCIe lanes. There is a spec update that gives the die the full x16 for the first PCIe slot, which can be bifurcated with UEFI support. It continues to include the x4 link to the chipset that can be repurposed for any other PCIe device, like an M.2. It continues to have the initial x4 link for the M.2 In addition to the internal support for other I/O features, there are precious few cases where a laptop will require more PCIe lanes than Renoir has.
Renoir doesn't have a chipset. We don't even know if it has 16 lanes, since AMD is extremely stingy with that sort of information, and reviewers don't care to check. We do know previous APUs had 12 lanes.
You're telling me Renoir uses a 55nm chipset that draws more power than an entire Zen2 CPU core? All for a few PCIe 2.0 lanes and a few USB controllers?
HWInfo was also written by the same person who claimed AMD engineers didn't know how to calculate the power of their own Zen chips, and that HWInfo's laughably low power figures were the correct ones. Of course, he was completely wrong, and AMD's own uProf tool was correct (this was before Ryzen Master).
I should note, HWInfo 6.26 also reports my Zen2 CPU with X570 Mobo as using Promontory ;).
The amount of people shitting about this subject is just massive. OEMs don't just go and buy some parts from AMD and put them in their future laptops. Laptops need to be designed for a specific platform and if amd doesn't have enough field engineers and money to support oems during development they won't get designs. Is that so hard to understand for f***** sake?
Lenovo is among the first adoptors of raven when zen APU first arrived with thinkpad A stuff, and by picasso they put them in E and T laptops with the same chassis. Other than v pro which is intel's tech, tb3 and a 4k screen on t495, for the common business man the picasso T and E laptops could've been configured to feature parity while being cheaper and faster.
I think Lenovo has a similar issue to Msft in this respect. Diverge the product line feature set... or stay with one provider.
ICL shipped with integrated Thunderbolt, and yet the Surface Pro 7 has it disabled... I wonder if that's because of the Ryzen Surface Laptop 3. Until we get to USB4, Thunderbolt is incompatible with AMD chipsets. Msft had to make a decision to omit Thunderbolt on their 15" flagship Surface Laptop... Or disable it across the board for feature parity across their whole product line (SB3, SL3, SP7).
I wonder if this a similar story for Lenovo... Creating a AMD version of X1 E would result in the loss of Management Engine and Thunderbolt (and other things). For the T series, there might be enough buyers to be worth the product line split and additional engineering costs to develop a separate line, but X1 E might be harder to say...
Also, it's not a deliberately lifting hinge for any screen angle that is useful. It's the same problem the older X1 carbons (no clue about the 7th/8th gen), E series, etc all faced. The backside of the screen ends up contacting the desk surface when the screen is open > ~150 degrees or so. Just poor design and oversight, but what we have come to expect from Lenovo.
Being unfamiliar with a P1, I am curious to know why a P1 would be preferred over the X1. I previously owned an X1 Extreme and sold it. I would also like to have AMD 4000-series as well so I wonder if there will be an AMD version of the P1.
My most demanding task is video NLE production with BlackMagic's DaVinci Resolve or similar. Thus a dGPU is also desired. For external connectivity, I would like to have thunderbolt 3 ports, but that's not realistic with AMD and USB4 isn't a reality yet. I can live with USB-C 3.2 for the interim so long as there are dual M.2 slots.
It's purely a cosmetic decision. Lenovo backed down this time, but they were originally planning on a massive X1 logo across the back of the lid. Instead, they just moved it up to the Thinkpad logo area.
I agree on the USB4 part, but USB4 doesn't require TB3 tech integration or even 40Gbps operation. The spec (already published, and freely available [unlike VESA Displayport, for example]) notes both as optional features. Yay. Hopefully AMD implements the real deal, on the SoC die itself (same for the desktop CPUs, where the Zen2 I/O die currently has a couple of USB 3.2 gen{?} controllers, with the rest coming from the Southbridge).
We still haven't seen a single AMD H-series laptop with solely integrated graphics. I don't know if that's a coincidence, but regardless it doesn't seem to be an OEM priority. This sort of device would be a good candidate to include such a configuration.
When I see Intel Core i9 with that slim chassis, my first thought is that the performance is going to be bad and not worth paying more for the higher end i9. The chip will run too hot to maintain a decent clockspeed. For all it matter, you may only be getting an i7 kind of performance.
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Xajel - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I know OEMs were surprised by how Ryzen 4000 APU's performed and how much consumers actually liked and wanted it, and most of them didn't have anytime to tweak their special intel designs to use this new chip.But, seriously, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, XPS 15/17 and the MBP 16 are just few of the laptops I really wish to have a Ryzen 4000H series APU's inside them. Even thought with the rumours Apple is moving away from x86, it's hard to think they will do another jump in the short term. intel made them sick of x86 and they already love depending and developing everything by them selfs to control everything.
NICOXIS - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I wonder when did AMD start to sample Ryzen 4000 APU to OEMs... probably in Q2 2019? not sure if "surprise" is the right term, rather fear of disturbing Inteljeremyshaw - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I'd guess the lack of PCIe lanes did this one in, for high end laptops.Old APUs were 12 lanes, and nobody is speaking about the lane count on newer ones.
Even if we add another 4, we have to split it amongst:
GPU, NVMe (2 of them, in the X1 Extreme), Thunderbolt 3, SD (fast ones, anyways), WiFi, GbE LAN (the X1E and P1 still include an internal NIC and use a breakout cable), etc.
With the Intel H series, you have 16 lanes from the CPU + whatever amount from the southbridge. AMD doesn't use a southbridge, so that's all you get. It's not even a bandwidth question at this stage, rather "will I have enough PCIe ports to even connect all of the onboard devices?"
Speaking of bandwidth, eGPUs have shown bandwidth scaling is a problem at x4, especially if you pump the video frames back over the PCIe bus (muxless Optimus). This means x8 is basically the minimum for any GPU worth putting in a laptop.
After all is said and done, AMD just needs more onboard interfaces. Their SERDES can already handle 10GbE, but it's never exposed for anything outside of the D series CPUs.
For laptops without dGPU options, who knows? IMO, AMD should have focused there, and created actually useful reference platforms and provided engineering support. The whole APU H series targets and plans, all seemed like a mistake to me. Only one laptop even implemented Smartshift, and it is a vastly inferior laptop that has no headroom for smartshift to operate in.
lightningz71 - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I don't think that Renoir is particularly hurting for PCIe lanes. There is a spec update that gives the die the full x16 for the first PCIe slot, which can be bifurcated with UEFI support. It continues to include the x4 link to the chipset that can be repurposed for any other PCIe device, like an M.2. It continues to have the initial x4 link for the M.2 In addition to the internal support for other I/O features, there are precious few cases where a laptop will require more PCIe lanes than Renoir has.jeremyshaw - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Renoir doesn't have a chipset. We don't even know if it has 16 lanes, since AMD is extremely stingy with that sort of information, and reviewers don't care to check. We do know previous APUs had 12 lanes.hanselltc - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Renoir does have a chipset. It uses promontory, same chip as 300/400 series chipsets. Saw it present in Renoir laptops' HWinfo reports.jeremyshaw - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
You're telling me Renoir uses a 55nm chipset that draws more power than an entire Zen2 CPU core? All for a few PCIe 2.0 lanes and a few USB controllers?HWInfo was also written by the same person who claimed AMD engineers didn't know how to calculate the power of their own Zen chips, and that HWInfo's laughably low power figures were the correct ones. Of course, he was completely wrong, and AMD's own uProf tool was correct (this was before Ryzen Master).
I should note, HWInfo 6.26 also reports my Zen2 CPU with X570 Mobo as using Promontory ;).
Meaker10 - Saturday, June 20, 2020 - link
External GPUs are mostly limited by latency of the thunderbolt controller more than the bandwidth.yeeeeman - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
The amount of people shitting about this subject is just massive. OEMs don't just go and buy some parts from AMD and put them in their future laptops. Laptops need to be designed for a specific platform and if amd doesn't have enough field engineers and money to support oems during development they won't get designs. Is that so hard to understand for f***** sake?hanselltc - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Lenovo is among the first adoptors of raven when zen APU first arrived with thinkpad A stuff, and by picasso they put them in E and T laptops with the same chassis. Other than v pro which is intel's tech, tb3 and a 4k screen on t495, for the common business man the picasso T and E laptops could've been configured to feature parity while being cheaper and faster.weilin - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
I think Lenovo has a similar issue to Msft in this respect. Diverge the product line feature set... or stay with one provider.ICL shipped with integrated Thunderbolt, and yet the Surface Pro 7 has it disabled... I wonder if that's because of the Ryzen Surface Laptop 3. Until we get to USB4, Thunderbolt is incompatible with AMD chipsets. Msft had to make a decision to omit Thunderbolt on their 15" flagship Surface Laptop... Or disable it across the board for feature parity across their whole product line (SB3, SL3, SP7).
I wonder if this a similar story for Lenovo... Creating a AMD version of X1 E would result in the loss of Management Engine and Thunderbolt (and other things). For the T series, there might be enough buyers to be worth the product line split and additional engineering costs to develop a separate line, but X1 E might be harder to say...
grant3 - Friday, June 19, 2020 - link
Thunderbolt is disabled on surface devices because some executive was paranoid about it possibly being a malware/hack vector.jeremyshaw - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Get the P1. No X1 tramp stamp.Also, it's not a deliberately lifting hinge for any screen angle that is useful. It's the same problem the older X1 carbons (no clue about the 7th/8th gen), E series, etc all faced. The backside of the screen ends up contacting the desk surface when the screen is open > ~150 degrees or so. Just poor design and oversight, but what we have come to expect from Lenovo.
tokyojerry - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
Being unfamiliar with a P1, I am curious to know why a P1 would be preferred over the X1. I previously owned an X1 Extreme and sold it. I would also like to have AMD 4000-series as well so I wonder if there will be an AMD version of the P1.My most demanding task is video NLE production with BlackMagic's DaVinci Resolve or similar. Thus a dGPU is also desired. For external connectivity, I would like to have thunderbolt 3 ports, but that's not realistic with AMD and USB4 isn't a reality yet. I can live with USB-C 3.2 for the interim so long as there are dual M.2 slots.
jeremyshaw - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
It's purely a cosmetic decision. Lenovo backed down this time, but they were originally planning on a massive X1 logo across the back of the lid. Instead, they just moved it up to the Thinkpad logo area.I agree on the USB4 part, but USB4 doesn't require TB3 tech integration or even 40Gbps operation. The spec (already published, and freely available [unlike VESA Displayport, for example]) notes both as optional features. Yay. Hopefully AMD implements the real deal, on the SoC die itself (same for the desktop CPUs, where the Zen2 I/O die currently has a couple of USB 3.2 gen{?} controllers, with the rest coming from the Southbridge).
close - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
While I find that X1 logo on the back of the lid pretty garish I would definitely not go for the P1 just for this.olafgarten - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
I don't know why the moved it from it's current location. On the Gen 2 it's much smaller and on the opposite cornerSirKnobsworth - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
You can actually see the Thunderbolt logos on there, so yes, TB3 #confirmedvol.2 - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
how is the 1650ti extreme?lmcd - Wednesday, June 17, 2020 - link
We still haven't seen a single AMD H-series laptop with solely integrated graphics. I don't know if that's a coincidence, but regardless it doesn't seem to be an OEM priority. This sort of device would be a good candidate to include such a configuration.scineram - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
Not Renoir, not interesting.watzupken - Thursday, June 18, 2020 - link
When I see Intel Core i9 with that slim chassis, my first thought is that the performance is going to be bad and not worth paying more for the higher end i9. The chip will run too hot to maintain a decent clockspeed. For all it matter, you may only be getting an i7 kind of performance.