System Performance

Let's talk performance and once again here I'll be generally going through how the HP Envy x360 13 performs in a summarized manner because nosotros've already covered the Ryzen 5 2500U in particular a fair while agone, and those results are even so perfectly valid. And yeah, the Envy x360 unit nosotros were sent packs the Ryzen v 2500U.

Also available is the Ryzen 7 2700U if you want slightly college CPU clocks and a decent corporeality more GPU functioning, while on the lower cease you lot can get the Ryzen 3 2300U, although I'd recommend sticking with at least the Ryzen 5 to get a decent GPU. There's as well viii GB of DDR4 as standard, and a 256GB SSD, although those parts are upgradeable if you'd like. Strangely, HP only offers a 16GB RAM upgrade with the Ryzen 5 SKU, not Ryzen 7. A 4K screen is likewise optional though I'd stick to 1080p for performance and battery life reasons.

The principal difference between the Ryzen 5 2500U in the 13-inch Envy x360, and the 1 in the 15-inch Envy x360 we used for our original Ryzen 5 2500U testing, is the power configuration. The 15-inch model with more room for cooling uses a 25W configuration, whereas the thirteen-inch I'1000 reviewing today uses the standard 15W configuration. While the bit and its specs is identical, this TDP difference governs how power is split between the CPU and GPU, as well as what levels of boost clocks tin can be sustained and for how long, so naturally at that place'southward going to be a operation divergence when going from 25W to 15W.

The adept news is that when y'all compare the two configurations, the performance difference is only significant in a few types of workloads. In shorter, mostly CPU-bound tasks like Cinebench, Excel, 7-Naught and PCMark, at that place is very little performance difference; either within the margin of mistake, or reduced by a unmarried digit amount. Considering nosotros're talking about a 40 percentage reduction in TDP, and most 'everyday' tasks are these shorter, CPU-jump type things, that's a dandy result for the 15W configuration of Ryzen 5 Mobile.

Where the 2500U does have a hit is in longer workloads, specifically things like video encoding. Handbrake, for example, is 27 percentage slower in a test that takes over 2 hours to complete. Blender is some other benchmark that sees around that 27 to 28 percent hit, which again isn't quite as big as the 40 per centum cutting to ability.

The other expanse that gets impacted is GPU performance, and information technology's at that place yous'll see reductions by around 30 to 35 percent, fifty-fifty in shorter loads. It's no real surprise the higher 25W configuration is able to allocate more power to the GPU, and so when yous bring that down to 15W, it's an expanse that is going to endure a fleck.

Discussing the 15W versus 25W configurations is just for interests sake really, as the main comparison is between the Ryzen 5 2500U and the Core i5-8250U, the latter of which is found in competing systems around this price. And here, Ryzen is quite competitive depending on the workload, particularly in tasks that utilize the GPU.

In Cinebench R15, the Ryzen v 2500U takes a strong 21 percent lead and in that location were too handy wins in 7-Nix decompression and our Premiere non-Lumetri test. Blender was also a proficient 15 percent faster on the 2500U thanks to Ryzen Mobile's far more than impressive integrated graphics. Several other tests pulled up around the same level as the 8250U, including Excel, x264 encoding'south second laissez passer, and PCMark.

The 2 major losses shouldn't come as a surprise. Handbrake uses AVX instructions for encoding x265 videos, and Ryzen is well known to have weaker AVX functioning compared to equivalent Intel parts, hence why it falls 28 percent backside. MATLAB, a unremarkably used tool for engineers, isn't optimized for Ryzen at all and in fact uses Intel-optimized binaries which sees Ryzen endure significantly in that test.

In GPU jump scenarios like 3DMark's Time Spy examination, the Ryzen v 2500U holds an enormous lead on the Core i5-8250U, to the tune of more than than fifty percent, and this carries across into GPU-bound games and compute-heavy applications. In that location is no doubt any that the Ryzen 5 2500U is far superior to the Cadre i5-8250U in graphics, and in some cases similar Fortnite information technology's actually possible to play the game comfortably on the 2500U where the 8250U is simply not fast plenty.

And that's really the tale of the two CPU options: the Ryzen five 2500U offers equivalent CPU performance to the Cadre i5-8250U in almost applications, except the 2500U offers significantly better graphics performance. If you want to exercise annihilation GPU related, including playing bones-level games, and you lot're tossing upwardly betwixt the Envy x360 with Ryzen Mobile, and something with Intel inside, Ryzen Mobile is a much better option.

Both AMD and Intel have higher tier CPUs on offering in a 15W TDP configuration: on the Intel side at that place's the Core i7-8550U, and on the AMD side we take the Ryzen 7 2700U, so it doesn't seem fair to compare the Ryzen 5 2500U in my review unit to, say, the Core i7-8550U. But if yous do want more performance, there is an Envy x360 13 with the Ryzen 7 2700U within, so you'll be able to savour the faster CPU and GPU that APU provides. And over again, the 2700U is extremely competitive with the 8550U, particularly in graphics where Ryzen Mobile absolutely dominates.

There is one other laptop configuration we want to mention, and that'southward the Core i7-8550U paired upwardly with Nvidia's GeForce MX150 1D12, a combo we've started to see in thirteen-inch notebooks recently to provide a decent GPU in Intel-powered systems to replace their mediocre integrated GPU. The MX150 1D12 is a fair flake faster than the GPU in the Ryzen v 2500U, merely the 2700U certainly gives it a run for its money. Besides, the MX150 + 8550U combo requires more ability than Ryzen Mobile, and so that's something to keep in heed for those that run workloads on battery.

We haven't done all-encompassing testing with the Ryzen 7 2700U or MX150 1D12, just what we'll say is don't automatically assume the discrete MX150 is superior to the Ryzen 7 2700U'south integrated Vega GPU simply considering it's a discrete GPU. Ryzen Mobile is highly competitive with the MX150 1D12 and that's why we think it's such a compelling option for ultraportable systems.