The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 barely beats the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U's Vega 7 iGPU: Why are some OEMs using it anyway?

[Finch]

The simple fact is that not a single laptop manufacturer is putting any real time or effort into the AMD based laptops despite their performance.

MSI has the Alpha and Bravo, both are marketed as budget models. Neither have Nvidia graphics for people doing any kind of video or content creation that would benefit from the Nvidia graphics, and even if they did, the display panels are unusable for even photo editing.

Asus has done this, along with the G14, G15, and TUF A15. G14 offers no upgradability with it's one M.2, and half the memory soldered onto the board. Same thing for the G15, except it has 2 M.2 slots, though you're just going to be slow cooking them looking at the thermals which are prone to 100C under load thanks to terrible chassis and fan design from Asus. The TUF is the most upgradable but has a screen so bad you can't enjoy Netflix on it.

Now go look at Lenovo's recent release of their next Legion series. Compared to the options for memory, display panel, and gpu in the intel based 7i and 5i models, the AMD based 5 model is a farce for the entire series launch.

The simple fact is that all of these manufacturers consider the Ryzen systems to be low cost & budget models they couldn't care less about, so is it any wonder they're making these odd and questionable decisions?

To those complaining about AMD GPUs, with as much as I hate to admit it, go watch videos comparing some of the "top end" creator systems from MSI, Asus etc being compared to a 16" Macbook Pro (I'm VERY anti-apple so it literally pains me to admit it) but the Macbook Pro using Vega graphics handles things like 4k and 8k video editing better than the "Creator" based machines like the Prestige or Creator P75 using "Nvidia Studio Drivers" .. so I fail to see how AMD's GPU's are lacking with the exception of intense gaming which I don't do and have no interest in. Though even the comparisons I've seen there, unless you're on a 240hz+ display, I doubt you're going to notice a difference.

[John-Paul Hunt]

You ever went into the task manager to see how many apps are auto suspending using UMP and if NTFS or REfS for file indexing on HDDs and SSDs is faster and more secure using windows 10 virtual desktops running multiple open games and apps using a Logitech mouse or keyboard button press or mouse swipe to change screen on the fly to see is the apps are still running or not as MacOS already does this? I did and windows did not shutdown running apps games or the browser in question here so that's how you test to see how badly bloated your prebuilt system is and how bad the OS is made using base hardware like an Xbox one series x console as that internet browser and apps and OS are horrible and run badly being very insecure too without a vpn or virtual credit card numbers to buy things from the XBL store here. Its the same way with windows OS as well right now as it can change for the better if people and they wanted that to be done.

[_MT_]

To those complaining about AMD GPUs, with as much as I hate to admit it, go watch videos comparing some of the "top end" creator systems from MSI, Asus etc being compared to a 16" Macbook Pro (I'm VERY anti-apple so it literally pains me to admit it) but the Macbook Pro using Vega graphics handles things like 4k and 8k video editing better than the "Creator" based machines like the Prestige or Creator P75 using "Nvidia Studio Drivers" .. so I fail to see how AMD's GPU's are lacking with the exception of intense gaming which I don't do and have no interest in. Though even the comparisons I've seen there, unless you're on a 240hz+ display, I doubt you're going to notice a difference.

That's to a large extent Apple's work. Both in OS/ drivers and in Final Cut Pro (if that's what they're comparing against). Install Windows and performance is going to drop significantly. Or look at DaVinci Resolve, tends to be significantly faster on MacOS (and FCP can beat it still) IIRC. Vega isn't bad. But it's expensive. And AMD struggled with drivers. And Windows can suck. And the editors are not all as optimized. Apple simply has its ducks in a row. In video editing, Mac can indeed be considered "Pro". Simply buying a Vega card won't get you there.

[Astar]

To those complaining about AMD GPUs, with as much as I hate to admit it, go watch videos comparing some of the "top end" creator systems from MSI, Asus etc being compared to a 16" Macbook Pro (I'm VERY anti-apple so it literally pains me to admit it) but the Macbook Pro using Vega graphics handles things like 4k and 8k video editing better than the "Creator" based machines like the Prestige or Creator P75 using "Nvidia Studio Drivers" .. so I fail to see how AMD's GPU's are lacking with the exception of intense gaming which I don't do and have no interest in. Though even the comparisons I've seen there, unless you're on a 240hz+ display, I doubt you're going to notice a difference.

That's to a large extent Apple's work. Both in OS/ drivers and in Final Cut Pro (if that's what they're comparing against). Install Windows and performance is going to drop significantly. Or look at DaVinci Resolve, tends to be significantly faster on MacOS (and FCP can beat it still) IIRC. Vega isn't bad. But it's expensive. And AMD struggled with drivers. And Windows can suck. And the editors are not all as optimized. Apple simply has its ducks in a row. In video editing, Mac can indeed be considered "Pro". Simply buying a Vega card won't get you there.

@_MT_:

What utter rubbish! Stop spreading your fruity fangirl tosh!

Apple hardware sucks. No refreshes for 7-8 years and still fangirls like you buy the same ancient stuff at brand new prices.

DaVinci Resolve benefits greatly from GPU horsepower and is well-known to be optimized for CUDA, which favours Nvidia GPUs. Apple only bothers to expend the minimal engineering support for AMD GPUs, which is a function of how little they care about the MacOS product line. Hence it is very well known that Apple SUCKS big time when running DaVinci Resolve. I just caught you with your pants down lying blatantly.

I won't even bother addressing your Final Cut Pro nonsense. Who the hell even uses that crap piece of legacy software?! There's a reason why its dead - the clueless developers were lame enough to make it run only on Macs... an insignificant OS running on a single digit percentage share of the worlds computers. The whole damn world, including Hollywood has long since made Adobe Premier the industry standard, you mug!

In all industrial applications, from AutoCAD, Adobe Premiere, Photoshop etc. PCs rule. All the huge tender projects I've seen involving hundreds or thousands of workstation computers have always been for PCs only. Nobody is dumb enough to procure hardware that only can run on 1 kind of CPU (Intel) and 1 kind of GPU (AMD). With PCs you can run anything and that is a corporate/enterprise requirement. Clueless idiot!

[Astar]

another attack by religious igpu believers? lol
lets check the data
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/38004-amd-vega-7-8-mx350-benchmarks/
last table, same chassis, vega 7, second best vega versus mx350(10w version, keep in mind)
+30% fps
-5%
+95%
+60%
+41%
0 fps vs 30, not sure how to count it
+32%
+33%
+11%
+225%
10w mx is incomparably better, more than +50% avg fps, even more in 1% lows, some games are not even working on vega.
but yea,, go spread some "you dont need more fps" bullshit between noobs.

FFS, there are no "religious igpu believers", you idiot! Only people who understand what power-performance efficiency in thermally constrained casing - as compared to idiots like you.

In laptops, there's never enough thermal headroom for anything, whether CPU, iGPU or dGPU. Its the zealots like you who apply your zealot view of PCs to a zero understanding of laptop design.

Its all about putting the most price/weight/size/performance-efficient silicon in a laptop. The point is that low end crappy dGPUs like MX150, 250, 350 are pointless rubbish.

You don't even understand the basics. The wiring to connect the CPU to such crappy dGPUs like the MX350, at the nanometer level, is like the equivalent of driving a car (as an analogy to electrons) from one city to another across state lines. On an AMD APU's iGPU, the wiring distance that the electrons have to travel from the Zen 2 CPU cores to the Vega GPU cores is like the equivalent of driving across the street!

Hence, this CPU-GPU latency inefficiency means dGPUs can NEVER be as efficient or as fast or as latency free as iGPUs. Anybody with cow brains & cow sense should understand that! They consume a lot of energy for the same performance. This energy also creates far more heat, which builds up in the laptop chasis with tiny fans and tiny heatsinks, which then screws everything up as the CPU, the iGPU, the dGPU, the RAM, the SSD... EVERTHING then has to throttle.

In a PC chasis, you can put in a fan as large as you want, feed the fan and dGPU as much power as you want to leverage the huge silicon die size efficiencies where there are a lot more CUs in close proximity to each other on the dGPU die. But this is really a case where you feed brute force power to extract graphics performance from the dGPU die to overcome the inherent dGPU-to-CPU distance inefficiencies.

As I have said many times to ignorant zealots like you, the most power efficient, price efficient and design efficient solution is the AMD APU with iGPU. MX150/250/350 dGPUs are stupid when they consume 25 or 35W on their own... when the AMD Zen 2 CPU and Vega iGPU only consumes 15W!!!

The size of the die also makes the motherboard surface area much bigger, which means there is less space for battery volume/capacity obviously. Not forgetting that the dGPU usually requires its own copper heat pipe and fan, reducing internal space even more!

You don't seem to even understand basic common sense stuff like what so many others have been pointing out here. It is MUCH CHEAPER in terms of BOM costs, to put a single larger copper heat pipe and/or larger fan on top of the AMD Zen 2 Renoir APU to allow it to clock higher speeds. Yet the performance-per-watt will beat any MX350 anytime!

[Tinien]

FFS, there are no "religious igpu believers", you idiot! Only people who understand what power-performance efficiency in thermally constrained casing - as compared to idiots like you.

In laptops, there's never enough thermal headroom for anything, whether CPU, iGPU or dGPU. Its the zealots like you who apply your zealot view of PCs to a zero understanding of laptop design.

Its all about putting the most price/weight/size/performance-efficient silicon in a laptop. The point is that low end crappy dGPUs like MX150, 250, 350 are pointless rubbish.

You don't even understand the basics. The wiring to connect the CPU to such crappy dGPUs like the MX350, at the nanometer level, is like the equivalent of driving a car (as an analogy to electrons) from one city to another across state lines. On an AMD APU's iGPU, the wiring distance that the electrons have to travel from the Zen 2 CPU cores to the Vega GPU cores is like the equivalent of driving across the street!

Hence, this CPU-GPU latency inefficiency means dGPUs can NEVER be as efficient or as fast or as latency free as iGPUs. Anybody with cow brains & cow sense should understand that! They consume a lot of energy for the same performance. This energy also creates far more heat, which builds up in the laptop chasis with tiny fans and tiny heatsinks, which then screws everything up as the CPU, the iGPU, the dGPU, the RAM, the SSD... EVERTHING then has to throttle.

In a PC chasis, you can put in a fan as large as you want, feed the fan and dGPU as much power as you want to leverage the huge silicon die size efficiencies where there are a lot more CUs in close proximity to each other on the dGPU die. But this is really a case where you feed brute force power to extract graphics performance from the dGPU die to overcome the inherent dGPU-to-CPU distance inefficiencies.

As I have said many times to ignorant zealots like you, the most power efficient, price efficient and design efficient solution is the AMD APU with iGPU. MX150/250/350 dGPUs are stupid when they consume 25 or 35W on their own... when the AMD Zen 2 CPU and Vega iGPU only consumes 15W!!!

The size of the die also makes the motherboard surface area much bigger, which means there is less space for battery volume/capacity obviously. Not forgetting that the dGPU usually requires its own copper heat pipe and fan, reducing internal space even more!

You don't seem to even understand basic common sense stuff like what so many others have been pointing out here. It is MUCH CHEAPER in terms of BOM costs, to put a single larger copper heat pipe and/or larger fan on top of the AMD Zen 2 Renoir APU to allow it to clock higher speeds. Yet the performance-per-watt will beat any MX350 anytime!

I want to argue with you about your confidence in the superiority of embedded video over discrete one. All you wrote about efficiency of iGPU and inefficiency of dGPU with their performance-per-watt isn't supported by illustrative examples - only emotional speculations. On the contrary, your opponent gave a quite compelling evidence of MX350 obvious superiority over Vega 7 in the game benchmarks. Weird that you didn't comment on this in any way, you simply ignored an inconvenient fact that does not agree with your speculations. But facts are stubborn thing they speak for themselves. About dGPU performance-per-watt inefficiency - to put it mildly, you are exaggerating heat dissipation of MX350. Considering that it only consumes 10 watts (we speak about less powerful version designed for thin 14" ultrabooks) this dGPU hardly can overheat even in such constrained space as in ultrabooks. And despite this is less powerful version of MX350 even it easily beats 4700U's Vega 7 in game benchmarks. The 25 watt version will all the more surpass Vega 7. But 25 Watt version should be used on larger, 15" laptop and in its case this MX350 will work quite efficiently and calmly.

[Astar]

I want to argue with you about your confidence in the superiority of embedded video over discrete one. All you wrote about efficiency of iGPU and inefficiency of dGPU with their performance-per-watt isn't supported by illustrative examples - only emotional speculations. On the contrary, your opponent gave a quite compelling evidence of MX350 obvious superiority over Vega 7 in the game benchmarks. Weird that you didn't comment on this in any way, you simply ignored an inconvenient fact that does not agree with your speculations. But facts are stubborn thing they speak for themselves. About dGPU performance-per-watt inefficiency - to put it mildly, you are exaggerating heat dissipation of MX350. Considering that it only consumes 10 watts (we speak about less powerful version designed for thin 14" ultrabooks) this dGPU hardly can overheat even in such constrained space as in ultrabooks. And despite this is less powerful version of MX350 even it easily beats 4700U's Vega 7 in game benchmarks. The 25 watt version will all the more surpass Vega 7. But 25 Watt version should be used on larger, 15" laptop and in its case this MX350 will work quite efficiently and calmly.

You want to argue, you must at least have a brain and the ability to read. Much less think.

I already said that performance is meaningless without considering the power consumption in a power-battery-heat constrained LAPTOP CHASIS, you idiot!

I also stated the freaking obvious - If the MX350 benchmarks beat & outperform the AMD Ryzen APUs that is because they consume 25W on their own! What 10W nonsense are you blabbering about?!? Read the Nvidia spec sheet! Add in the Intel CPU's power consumption, the Intel CPU + MX350 or whatever low end dGPU crap is utterly pointless when the AMD Renoir APUs use as little as 15W on their own. Not only that, the top of the line Zen 2 Renoir chips perform basically the same as the Intel+MX350 crap.

That is the whole point of the article, you fool!