Lenovo ThinkPad T14s : L'AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U laisse Intel dans la poussière

Après le nouveau X1 Carbon qui n'est qu'une mise à jour mineure cette année, les nouveaux ThinkPad T14 pourraient bien être le nouveau modèle le plus intéressant de Lenovo. Le successeur des ThinkPad T490s (Intel) et ThinkPad T495s (AMD), respectivement, s'appelle désormais ThinkPad T14s Gen.1. Lenovo combine donc les deux options de processeur en une seule série de modèles. Nous avons les deux SKU dans notre bureau de rédaction et avons déjà effectué quelques tests de référence. Les deux appareils sont des modèles éducatifs avec les caractéristiques suivantes :

The comparison of the two processors is very interesting because Lenovo uses the same TDP limits. However, the Intel model even has a slight advantage, because the Core i5 can consume up to 45W for a few seconds before the regular limits set in at 25W (PL2) and 18W (PL1). The AMD model can consume 25W at the beginning and then quickly drops to 18W after a couple of seconds. This means both chips consume pretty much the same amount of power. The Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U obviously benefits from its 8 cores /16 threads in the multi-core tests and can easily beat all the Intel rivals. To get a better perspective, we have also included the brand-new Dell XPS 17 with the Intel Core i7-10875H (also 8C/16T) in the comparison chart. This 45W processor is just slightly faster than the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U in all the benchmarks, despite the much higher power consumption. The single-core performance is the only thing where Intel's i7 chips still have an advantage, but the differences are very small. The improvements compared to the previous Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U are not bad, either.

The ThinkPad T14s is also ahead of the competitors in the synthetic PCMark 10. So far, we did not notice any problems and the subjective performance impression is very good.

The graphics calculations are handled by the integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega 7, which has a core clock of up to 1600 MHz. As expected, it is faster than the iGPUs from Intel's Comet Lake generation, but the newer Ice Lake iGPUs are also beaten. If you are currently looking for a 14-inch ThinkPad, you might also be interested in the comparison with the GeForce MX330, which is optional for the ThinkPad T14 or T15, for example. The AMD RX Vega 7 is either similarly fast or even ahead, at least in the synthetic benchmarks. We will obviously check the real-world gaming performance in our final review.

The AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U has impressed us in the initial benchmarks. At a similar power consumption, the mobile Intel CPUs (15W) are easily beaten, only the single-core performance still shows a slight advantage for the i7 chips. However, AMD's new chip is almost on par with Intel's current 45W CPUs like the i7-10875H in the Dell XPS 17 9700 when you stress all cores.

The second big advantage for AMD is the price. Our test model is a really good offer at 1399 Euros and offers much better specs than the similarly priced Intel SKU. So far, we did not experience any issues in regard to the implementation of the AMD processor, but we want to wait for all our measurements and tests before we can give a final verdict.

The only question is how long the battery of the AMD SKU will last compared to the Intel notebook. If AMD can keep up, then the only real argument for the Intel model would be the Thunderbolt 3 support. You can expect the full review of the ThinkPad T14s Gen.1 AMD next week.