The Ryzen 7 4800U is an Absolute Monster: Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 14 Laptop Review

[hfm]

@Allen

Can you DOUBLE CHECK that it's actually a Thunderbolt Port? Do you still have the laptop there in house?

I'm looking on Lenovo's site and the port LOOKS like it has a thunderbolt logo, but nowhere on their site do they say it has Thunderbolt.

On their site they say it's
"USB-C (USB 3.2 + DP + PD)"

Can you use AIDA64 to double check there's a thunderbolt port or actually hook up a thunderbolt device like an eGPU or Storage to see? I find it hard to believe a unit of this price would actually have a TB3 port.

EDIT: yeah I think you might need to amend this review: https://youtu.be/J2Py8ZkVFq0?t=304

(https://i.imgur.com/qY0QxjP.png)

[10basetom]

First Amd laptop with Thunderbolt?  >:D

If only it were true 😂.

[chx]

It obviously doesn't have Thunderbolt , Lenovo reused the Intel images. The PSREF is clear here but I am not allowed to link it, Google for Yoga Slim 7 14ARE05 Platform Specifications . I expect maybe next year we will get the functionality of TB3 but it'll be called USB 4.

[Edron]

There are a few things I don't understand:
1 - Your ratings. Such a rating for such a good laptop doesn't look right.
Example: you put 75 in gaming performance when you give 77 to a Dell XPS 13 9300 wich is what, 40% less powerful in this sector than this laptop?

But mostly, your ratings doesn't reflect the overall package in regards to the price.
We can just look at your top 10's full of intel equipped machines...

Anyway, it's a great laptop, but it's disappointing to see such a screen, 16:10 is ace, but glossy at 400nits is poor with such an amazing package. So far all Lenovo laptops have poor (from my critierias) screens. Not today we will see an XPS killer.
Happy to see Lenovo stepping up again.

[EJ]

There is a mistake in the article:
"Note that the GPU clock rate here is two times faster than what we recorded on the RX Vega 10-powered Dell Inspiron 15 when running the same game. "

Actually, the system RAM is what's operating at twice the clock rate... not the GPU clocks.

You didn't read properly. It was not about the GPU max clock rate but about the actual clock rate when running the Witcher 3 stresstest:

Yoga Slim 7:  Witcher 3 Stress   1.4 - 3.7   1750   86
Dell Insp. 15: Witcher 3 Stress   1.5 - 1.6     871    73

[neblogai]

In other words, the Yoga enhanced Vega has 25% higher clocks...
The other enhancements came from uArch modifications which resulted in about another 40% increased performance per core.

AMD specifically said they improved Vega's cores by 56% for Renoir (some of this will be due to core clock increases, everything else down to uArch).

You are wrong here. Picasso U-series laptops could not run at their specified GPU clock, and had to keep GPU at 600-950MHz, depending on the laptop. High cTDP Renoir, like in this laptop, can run the GPU ~full clock- thus GPU clocks are actually doubled.
And for 7nm Vega, the improvement comes from 7nm and arch improvements allowing way higher clocks (at same power), much higher RAM speed, and twice widened iGPU-CPU bandwidth, without improvement to Vega IPC.

[_MT_]

It obviously doesn't have Thunderbolt , Lenovo reused the Intel images. The PSREF is clear here but I am not allowed to link it, Google for Yoga Slim 7 14ARE05 Platform Specifications . I expect maybe next year we will get the functionality of TB3 but it'll be called USB 4.

It looks like they used the same chassis. You can see the Thunderbolt symbol even in pictures used in this article which look like NBC's own. I imagine they might be breaching licensing agreement.

USB 4 is going to use TB3's physical layer (with some tweaks AFAIK) which is going to allow them to increase throughput. But USB 4 is going to remain USB. It's going to use USB protocol and connect to USB devices. It's not going to support Thunderbolt's features. Equipment like eGPUs communicates using PCIe. Thunderbolt extends PCIe to external devices. USB is just going to reuse the underlying technology which allowed Intel to accomplish that. That's my understanding. Of course, AMD is free to build the necessary controller.

[_MT_]

There are a few things I don't understand:
1 - Your ratings. Such a rating for such a good laptop doesn't look right.
Example: you put 75 in gaming performance when you give 77 to a Dell XPS 13 9300 wich is what, 40% less powerful in this sector than this laptop?

But mostly, your ratings doesn't reflect the overall package in regards to the price.
We can just look at your top 10's full of intel equipped machines...

Anyway, it's a great laptop, but it's disappointing to see such a screen, 16:10 is ace, but glossy at 400nits is poor with such an amazing package. So far all Lenovo laptops have poor (from my critierias) screens. Not today we will see an XPS killer.
Happy to see Lenovo stepping up again.

This laptop is classified as a multimedia laptop. While I guess that the XPS 13 is classified as a subnotebook. Different class, different rating.

Yes, the rating doesn't account for price at all (as far as I know and can see). Value is subjective. Surely, you can make up your own mind on what is a good value to you. By the way, this laptop has a 16:9 screen.

[Xajel]

Another beast which is limited to 16GB.

Please Lenovo, make the Ryzen 7 laptops available in 16GB & 32GB only, no need for 8GB of RAM is such a high-end laptop.

[_MT_]

It is not wise to add a 17" inch laptop with desktop grade Intel CPU in multithreaded test if you dont add there also 4900H from AMD? (cinebench multi core charts)

Also I can ask, when you review Intel ultra thin laptops, you never ever put in the same charts 45W AMD 4900H CPUs. Because you dont want to show AMD first, for some reason...

The laptop is there to illustrate just how powerful this little thing is. It's mentioned in the text as well.

[deksman2]

There is a mistake in the article:
"Note that the GPU clock rate here is two times faster than what we recorded on the RX Vega 10-powered Dell Inspiron 15 when running the same game. "

Actually, the system RAM is what's operating at twice the clock rate... not the GPU clocks.

You didn't read properly. It was not about the GPU max clock rate but about the actual clock rate when running the Witcher 3 stresstest:

Yoga Slim 7:  Witcher 3 Stress   1.4 - 3.7   1750   86
Dell Insp. 15: Witcher 3 Stress   1.5 - 1.6     871    73

I stand corrected, but the problem here is that the REASON why Vega 10 is underperforming in Dell is quite simply because of the poor cooling.

[hfm]

It obviously doesn't have Thunderbolt , Lenovo reused the Intel images. The PSREF is clear here but I am not allowed to link it, Google for Yoga Slim 7 14ARE05 Platform Specifications . I expect maybe next year we will get the functionality of TB3 but it'll be called USB 4.

It looks like they used the same chassis. You can see the Thunderbolt symbol even in pictures used in this article which look like NBC's own. I imagine they might be breaching licensing agreement.

USB 4 is going to use TB3's physical layer (with some tweaks AFAIK) which is going to allow them to increase throughput. But USB 4 is going to remain USB. It's going to use USB protocol and connect to USB devices. It's not going to support Thunderbolt's features. Equipment like eGPUs communicates using PCIe. Thunderbolt extends PCIe to external devices. USB is just going to reuse the underlying technology which allowed Intel to accomplish that. That's my understanding. Of course, AMD is free to build the necessary controller.

Intel basically gave the a Thunderbolt 3 spec away for use in USB4. It definitely will be compatible as long as it's implemented from the mfg. It is optional to have TB3 interoperability, but rest assured it's in the spec.

[alessio.b87]

Too bad that in North America this configuration does not exist, we only get the 4700U + 8Gb of Ram. Damn!

[DougJudy]

It obviously doesn't have Thunderbolt , Lenovo reused the Intel images. The PSREF is clear here but I am not allowed to link it, Google for Yoga Slim 7 14ARE05 Platform Specifications . I expect maybe next year we will get the functionality of TB3 but it'll be called USB 4.

It looks like they used the same chassis. You can see the Thunderbolt symbol even in pictures used in this article which look like NBC's own. I imagine they might be breaching licensing agreement.

USB 4 is going to use TB3's physical layer (with some tweaks AFAIK) which is going to allow them to increase throughput. But USB 4 is going to remain USB. It's going to use USB protocol and connect to USB devices. It's not going to support Thunderbolt's features. Equipment like eGPUs communicates using PCIe. Thunderbolt extends PCIe to external devices. USB is just going to reuse the underlying technology which allowed Intel to accomplish that. That's my understanding. Of course, AMD is free to build the necessary controller.

Intel basically gave the a Thunderbolt 3 spec away for use in USB4. It definitely will be compatible as long as it's implemented from the mfg. It is optional to have TB3 interoperability, but rest assured it's in the spec.

Pretty much, all that's left is for manufacturers to implement it. The underlying platform (zen 2) clearly supports it, there's desktop boards with tb3 and even the ones without can be made to work with add on cards, I wouldn't put past there being a specific incompatibility with Renoir but I doubt it

I'm still hopeful this is not a mistake, but let's see

[_MT_]

Intel basically gave the a Thunderbolt 3 spec away for use in USB4. It definitely will be compatible as long as it's implemented from the mfg. It is optional to have TB3 interoperability, but rest assured it's in the spec.

What do you mean by compatible? Yes, Intel has given them the technology. Yes, USB4 is built on top of it. As far as I know, they actually tweaked the specification and they're going to use different encoding at the physical layer. But that's not the "problem." USB is going to remain USB. Meaning, they're still going to utilize the same protocols to provide the same functionality. They'll just use Intel's technology to increase bandwidth. USB4 and TB3 are going to be just as different technologies as USB3 and TB3. Only the bandwidth gap is going to close. I guess someone could build a USB external graphics card. But I'm not sure there is a suitable protocol within the USB specification. And it would be a different product then current eGPUs which utilize PCIe. Thunderbolt is just a "conduit" connecting the external device to the internal PCIe bus. USB, AFAIK, has no intention of doing that.