AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS Cezanne Review: Ryzen 5000 Mobile Tested
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 26, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Vega
- Ryzen
- Zen 3
- Renoir
- Notebook
- Ryzen 9 5980HS
- Ryzen 5000 Mobile
- Cezanne
CPU Tests: Encoding
One of the interesting elements on modern processors is encoding performance. This covers two main areas: encryption/decryption for secure data transfer, and video transcoding from one video format to another.
In the encrypt/decrypt scenario, how data is transferred and by what mechanism is pertinent to on-the-fly encryption of sensitive data - a process by which more modern devices are leaning to for software security.
Video transcoding as a tool to adjust the quality, file size and resolution of a video file has boomed in recent years, such as providing the optimum video for devices before consumption, or for game streamers who are wanting to upload the output from their video camera in real-time. As we move into live 3D video, this task will only get more strenuous, and it turns out that the performance of certain algorithms is a function of the input/output of the content.
HandBrake 1.32: Link
Video transcoding (both encode and decode) is a hot topic in performance metrics as more and more content is being created. First consideration is the standard in which the video is encoded, which can be lossless or lossy, trade performance for file-size, trade quality for file-size, or all of the above can increase encoding rates to help accelerate decoding rates. Alongside Google's favorite codecs, VP9 and AV1, there are others that are prominent: H264, the older codec, is practically everywhere and is designed to be optimized for 1080p video, and HEVC (or H.265) that is aimed to provide the same quality as H264 but at a lower file-size (or better quality for the same size). HEVC is important as 4K is streamed over the air, meaning less bits need to be transferred for the same quality content. There are other codecs coming to market designed for specific use cases all the time.
Handbrake is a favored tool for transcoding, with the later versions using copious amounts of newer APIs to take advantage of co-processors, like GPUs. It is available on Windows via an interface or can be accessed through the command-line, with the latter making our testing easier, with a redirection operator for the console output.
We take the compiled version of this 16-minute YouTube video about Russian CPUs at 1080p30 h264 and convert into three different files: (1) 480p30 ‘Discord’, (2) 720p30 ‘YouTube’, and (3) 4K60 HEVC.
Threads wins, although the +30W difference to the desktop processor with two fewer cores can't be overhauled. Almost though.
7-Zip 1900: Link
The first compression benchmark tool we use is the open-source 7-zip, which typically offers good scaling across multiple cores. 7-zip is the compression tool most cited by readers as one they would rather see benchmarks on, and the program includes a built-in benchmark tool for both compression and decompression.
The tool can either be run from inside the software or through the command line. We take the latter route as it is easier to automate, obtain results, and put through our process. The command line flags available offer an option for repeated runs, and the output provides the average automatically through the console. We direct this output into a text file and regex the required values for compression, decompression, and a combined score.
AES Encoding
Algorithms using AES coding have spread far and wide as a ubiquitous tool for encryption. Again, this is another CPU limited test, and modern CPUs have special AES pathways to accelerate their performance. We often see scaling in both frequency and cores with this benchmark. We use the latest version of TrueCrypt and run its benchmark mode over 1GB of in-DRAM data. Results shown are the GB/s average of encryption and decryption.
For our AES test here we actually had a small regression in performance. This could mean that there is additional performance hits to accessing the AES unit this time around, or the lower latency DDR4 of the Zephyrus is beating out the LPDDR4 on our Flow X13.
WinRAR 5.90: Link
For the 2020 test suite, we move to the latest version of WinRAR in our compression test. WinRAR in some quarters is more user friendly that 7-Zip, hence its inclusion. Rather than use a benchmark mode as we did with 7-Zip, here we take a set of files representative of a generic stack
- 33 video files , each 30 seconds, in 1.37 GB,
- 2834 smaller website files in 370 folders in 150 MB,
- 100 Beat Saber music tracks and input files, for 451 MB
This is a mixture of compressible and incompressible formats. The results shown are the time taken to encode the file. Due to DRAM caching, we run the test for 20 minutes times and take the average of the last five runs when the benchmark is in a steady state.
For automation, we use AHK’s internal timing tools from initiating the workload until the window closes signifying the end. This means the results are contained within AHK, with an average of the last 5 results being easy enough to calculate.
Another small performance uplift for WinRAR.
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Meteor2 - Thursday, February 4, 2021 - link
Great point.ikjadoon - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
It's great to see AMD kicking Intel's butt in a much larger market (i.e., laptops vastly outsell desktops): AMD really should be alongside, or simply replacing, Intel in most premium notebooks. Gaming notebooks are not my cup of tea, but glad to see for upcoming 15W Zen3 parts.Will we see actual, high-end Zen3 notebooks? Lenovo, HP, ASUS, Dell: for shame if you keep ramming toasty Tiger Lake down customers' throats. Lenovo's done some great offerings with both AMD & Intel; that means some compromises with notebook design (just go all AMD, man; if/when Intel is on top, switch back!), but beefier cooling for Intel will also help AMD.
Still, overall, I don't see anything convincing me that x86 is really right for notebooks, either. So much waste heat...for what? The M1 has rightly rejiggered expectations: 20 hours on 150 nits should be ordinary, not miraculous. Limited to no fan spin-up and max CPU load should yield a chassis maximum of 40C (slightly warmer than body temperature). And, all the while with class-leading 1T performance.
As this is a gaming laptop, it's not too relevant to compare web benchmarks (what most laptops do), but this is peak Zen3 mobile and it still falls quite short:
Speedometer 2.0
35W Ryzen 5980HS: 102 points (-57%)
125W i9-10900K: 119 points (-49%)
35W i7-1185G7: 128 points (-46%)
105W Ryzen 5950X: 140 points (-40%)
30W Apple M1: 234 points
You can double / triple x86 wattage and still be miles behind M1. I almost feel silly buying an x86 laptop again: just kilowatts of waste heat over time. Why? Electrons that never get used, just exhausted and thrown out as soon as possible because it'll throttle even worse otherwise.
undervolted_dc - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
because you here are benchmarking javascript engine in the browserbut not being enough you are comparing those in single thread so here you are comparing 1/16 of the 5950hs vs 1/4 of the m1
a 128core epyc or a 64core threadripper probably will be even worse in this single threaded benchmark ( because those are levaring threads and are less efficient in single threaded app )
if you like wrong calculations then 1 core of the 15w version use less tha 1w for what result ? ~ 100 points ? so who is wasting electrons here ?
( btw 1 core doesn't use 1/16 because there are boosts , but it's even less wrong than your comparison )
ZoZo - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
128-core EPYC? Where?His comparison is indeed misleading in terms of energy efficiency, but it's sad that no x86 is able to come even close to that single-threaded performance.
WaltC - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
Doubly sad for the M1 that we are living in the multicore/multithread era...;)ikjadoon - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
The energy efficient comparisons are pretty clear: the best x86 (Zen3) has stunningly lower IPC than M1, which barely cracks 3 GHz. The only way to make up for such a gulf in IPC is faster clocks. Faster clocks require the 100+W TDPs so common in high-performance desktop CPUs. It's why Zen3 mobile clocks so much lower than Zen3 desktop (3-4 GHz instead of 4-5 GHz)A CPU that needs 3x power to do the same work (and do it slower in most cases) must exhaust an enormous amount of heat, when considering nT or 1T benchmarks (Zen3 requires ~20W for 5 GHz boost on a *single* core). Look at those boost power consumption measurements.
Specifically in desktops (noted in my comparison about tripling TDP...), the CPU *alone* eats up an extra 60 to 90 watts during peak usage. Call it +20W average continuously, so we can do the math.
20W x 8 hours x 7 days a week = +1.1 kWh excess exhaust heat per week. x86 had two corporate giants to do better. It's been severely litigated, but that's Intel's comeuppance. If Intel can't put out high-perf, high-efficiency x86 architectures, then people will start to feel less attached to x86 as an ISA. x86 had billions and billions and billions of R&D.
I see no reason for consumers to religiously follow x86 Wintel or Wintel-clones in laptops especially, but desktops, too: where is the efficiency going to be coming from? Even if Apple *had flat 1T* for the next three years, I'd still feel more optimistic about M1-based CPUs in the long-term than x86.
Dug - Tuesday, January 26, 2021 - link
"I see no reason for consumers to religiously follow x86 Wintel or Wintel-clones in laptops especially, but desktops, too: where is the efficiency going to be coming from?"Software, and getting work done. M1 is great and all, but just need to convince the boss that Apple or 3rd party has software available for our company....... Nope, oh well.
Other negatives-
For personal use, people aren't going to spend thousands of dollars to get new software on new platform.
They can't play games (or should I say they can't play a majority), which is probably the largest market.
They can't change anything about their software
They can't customize anything.
They can't upgrade any piece of their hardware.
They don't have options for same accessories.
So I'll go ahead and spend the extra $15 a year on energy to keep Windows.
Spunjji - Thursday, January 28, 2021 - link
"A CPU that needs 3x power to do the same work"It doesn't. It's been demonstrated a few times now that if you scale back Zen 3 cores to similar performance levels to M1, M1's perf/watt advantage drops to about 30%. It's still better than the node advantage alone, but it's not crippling, and M1 is simply not capable of scaling up to the clock speeds required to match x86 on desktop / HPC workloads.
They're different core designs matched to different purposes (ultra-mobile first vs. server first) and show different strengths as a result.
M1 is a significant achievement - no doubt about it - but you're *massively* overstating the case in its favour.
GeoffreyA - Friday, January 29, 2021 - link
Thank you for this.Meteor2 - Thursday, February 4, 2021 - link
"M1 is simply not capable of scaling up to the clock speeds required to match x86 on desktop / HPC workloads" ...Yet. In a couple of years x86 will be behind ARM across the board.Fastest HPC in the world is ARM *right now*. Only the fifth fastest is x86.