Your Ryzen laptop is (probably) throttled quite heavily when on battery - and it's (probably?) not a huge deal

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

And it is definitely worth noting that while these charts do indeed show a drastic drop-off especially in the "Better Battery" mode, it is important to note the context, in which these involve ultra-portable low-wattage laptops. It's more likely that a user would be doing tasks like browsing the web or doing document work on such a machine, where the additional responsiveness of Intel's boost behavior may not be as apparent, but battery saving measures, even at the cost of performance, may be more appreciated. Even Gordon makes that case in his article.

I don't have a problem with this in concept but there should be an option to disable this behavior. There is a slider specifically so a user can choose what to prioritize; maybe I don't care about getting the full battery life in some scenarios and I don't see why AMD should make that decision for me.

 

If it says "best performance" it should actually be the best performance.

[WolframaticAlpha]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

My old Asus A3H used to drastically lower the BUS speed to save power - due to the Celeron M380 lacking speedstep. Intel really shouldn't be trying to throw shade when they used to be far worse.

why? They improved now, hence they can throw as much shade as they want. but if their newest processors, even a celeron doesn't behave like it claims, then I would consider it wrong.

 

Anyway, AMD should repair this. If I want to use the max performance option on the slider on my machine, then don't throttle it. This thing

exists for a reason. While I don't think they were doing this intentionally, this throws the battery and performance tests being conducted way out of whack in some cases.

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I don't have a problem with this in concept but there should be an option to disable this behavior. There is a slider specifically so a user can choose what to prioritize; maybe I don't care about getting the full battery life in some scenarios and I don't see why AMD should make that decision for me.

 

If it says "best performance" it should actually be the best performance.

Same here. I can actually reduce Intel's penchant for chugging down watts by messing with the power plans, but I think what makes this complicated is that many Windows laptops actually have TWO places where you can toggle power settings; the slider and whatever is inside the OEM-provided utility (if it isn't in Power Plans in the Control Panel).

 

The latter might actually have more of an impact in performance/battery life. On my Lenovo for example, setting the Vantage power plan to "Intelligent Cooling" and the Windows slider to "Better Battery" net me an average of 4-5 hours off the charger. Plopping it to "Power Saving" in Vantage extended it to 6-7, sometimes 8.

[Dabombinable]

47 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

why? They improved now, hence they can throw as much shade as they want. but if their newest processors, even a celeron doesn't behave like it claims, then I would consider it wrong.

 

Anyway, AMD should repair this. If I want to use the max performance option on the slider on my machine, then don't throttle it. This thing

exists for a reason. While I don't think they were doing this intentionally, this throws the battery and performance tests being conducted way out of whack in some cases.

Point is, Intel is known for having done the same thing - at least back when they were competing more equally in mobile efficiency. They shouldn't be acting as if it is out of the norm to have reduced performance on battery.

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, SGT-AMD said:

I use Park Control. Makes it very easy to adjust settings that you normally cannot find.

 

I think I've heard of that before

[samcool55]

3 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

Same here. I can actually reduce Intel's penchant for chugging down watts by messing with the power plans, but I think what makes this complicated is that many Windows laptops actually have TWO places where you can toggle power settings; the slider and whatever is inside the OEM-provided utility (if it isn't in Power Plans in the Control Panel).

 

The latter might actually have more of an impact in performance/battery life. On my Lenovo for example, setting the Vantage power plan to "Intelligent Cooling" and the Windows slider to "Better Battery" net me an average of 4-5 hours off the charger. Plopping it to "Power Saving" in Vantage extended it to 6-7, sometimes 8.

This isn't limited to Levovo ones either. I have an MSI Alpha 15, 3750H and a 5500M, has similar power plans and even a custom one that allows you to switch performance levels between "high" "medium" and "low". This is in their MSI Dragon Center tool. Also allows for a custom fan curve which is great.

 

I don't know the difference between "medium" and "high" (in my quick testing i didn't notice any difference) but on "low" the dGPU NEVER kicks in, it's basically permanently disabled. CPU clockspeeds also get kicked down to around 2.5-3Ghz instead of the usual 3.5-3.7Ghz. This even happens when plugged in which is sometimes useful.

 

So yes, the CPU probably throttles, even on older and more gaming-focused laptops, but in most cases you can probably overrule it anyway as long as the battery can keep up. It's just up to the OEM to actually give you those options.

[D13H4RD]

10 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

This isn't limited to Levovo ones either. I have an MSI Alpha 15, 3750H and a 5500M, has similar power plans and even a custom one that allows you to switch performance levels between "high" "medium" and "low". This is in their MSI Dragon Center tool. Also allows for a custom fan curve which is great.

Yep, pretty much any Windows laptop from a Tier-1 manufacturer like MSI, ASUS, Lenovo, Dell and HP, etc. would have the power plans inside whatever utility they've bundled in.

 

I kinda wished they were just a part of Windows to begin with due to that slider, but...hey ho.

[CephDigital]

Nothing wrong with what AMD is doing. In fact, I would prefer it like this. For instance, if you're a student, you want the most battery life to last you throughout your lectures and allow you to take notes. You aren't doing anything intensive so having the extra power isn't needed.

 

The option to choose how it performs under power is something that would be nice to see from both AMD and Intel

[Forbidden Wafer]

All I know is that my Intel equipped laptop overheats and throttles like there is no tomorrow if my max CPU isn't set to 99% on the power plan (which prevents SpeedStep/TurboBoost). Intel should shut up and fix their stuff.

[D13H4RD]

7 hours ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

All I know is that my Intel equipped laptop overheats and throttles like there is no tomorrow if my max CPU isn't set to 99% on the power plan (which prevents SpeedStep/TurboBoost). Intel should shut up and fix their stuff.

From what I understand, the "TDP" rating on a CPU's box or ARK page isn't necessarily what the CPU will follow. On Intel for instance, the TDP rating is its PL2 power limit. Since Coffee Lake, how it works is that it will blow past that PL2 rating to go much higher on what's called a "PL1" rating when a workload which demands that boost period fires up. So your 45W CPU might actually be chugging much more than that, for a predetermined amount of time. Once that time is reached (assuming it doesn't thermal-throttle), it throttles down to PL2, and stays there until the task is finished. This also means the cooling demand is much higher, so they tend to run warmer during extended workloads, especially for the time limit that the CPU is in PL1.

 

Some AMD laptops do also have overheating concerns, but in those cases, it's usually more of a case of poor design on the laptop manufacturer's part.

[Forbidden Wafer]

6 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

So your 45W CPU might actually be chugging much more than that, for a predetermined amount of time. Once that time is reached (assuming it doesn't thermal-throttle), it throttles down to PL2, and stays there until the task is finished. This also means the cooling demand is much higher, so they tend to run warmer during extended workloads, especially for the time limit that the CPU is in PL1.

It does that. The max fast boost is 90W as far as I remember, and the lower one is 65W. Completely stupid and nonsense. Disabling turbo boost at least makes it run consistently, otherwise the entire system freezes when throttling with frequency going up and down. Now I get it why Luke says not to buy gaming laptops...

[D13H4RD]

1 hour ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

It does that. The max fast boost is 90W as far as I remember, and the lower one is 65W. Completely stupid and nonsense. Disabling turbo boost at least makes it run consistently, otherwise the entire system freezes when throttling with frequency going up and down. Now I get it why Luke says not to buy gaming laptops...

Yeah, the cooling solution sounds like shit if it's that bad. I doubt it would fare much better with a Ryzen processor if it's really that bad.

 

Sadly, a lot of gaming laptops have mediocre cooling solutions. My old ASUS GL502 had a pitiful cooling system.

[StDragon]

For the vast majority of users that work off the battery for light duty work (Browser and Office apps), GDI performance is functionally the most important. I don't care how many CPU cycles you've got to burn per watt. If the Windows GUI feels sluggish in visual transitions, that's a problem.

So throttling the CPU on battery is perfectly acceptable. Just don't throttle the iGPU / APU.

[D13H4RD]

12 minutes ago, StDragon said:

For the vast majority of users that work off the battery for light duty work (Browser and Office apps), GDI performance is functionally the most important. I don't care how many CPU cycles you've got to burn per watt. If the Windows GUI feels sluggish in visual transitions, that's a problem.

So throttling the CPU on battery is perfectly acceptable. Just don't throttle the iGPU / APU.

Wonder if that's what's causing the sluggish performance on the Blade 14 off the charger.

[StDragon]

7 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Wonder if that's what's causing the sluggish performance on the Blade 14 off the charger.

Difficult to say. If it's using just the APU, then perhaps. But if video is going out through a dGPU (Nvidia), then perhaps power management is hobbling it.

[D13H4RD]

4 hours ago, StDragon said:

Difficult to say. If it's using just the APU, then perhaps. But if video is going out through a dGPU (Nvidia), then perhaps power management is hobbling it.

Some users report that the Blade 14 can feel somewhat sluggish off the charger in the Windows desktop. 

 

So APU throttling? 

[StDragon]

8 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Some users report that the Blade 14 can feel somewhat sluggish off the charger in the Windows desktop. 

 

So APU throttling? 

The Nvidia implementation of switchable graphics based on battery or AC profile is called Optimus. I'm not sure if such an animal exists when working with AMD APUs.

[Heliian]

On 7/11/2021 at 4:32 AM, D13H4RD said:

Pretty much. I don't think either philosophy is wrong, necessarily, just a bit perplexed as to why there isn't much information on this until recently. Especially the SSD throttling as that bit is new.

I don't think it's that new.  There have been power settings on every laptop I've owned and I crank mine up most of the time.  Battery life is a function of power draw, longer battery life sells. 

I think the newest part is nitpicking test results for such trivial things.  98% of people would not notice the difference under regular use.  Nobody buys a laptop for it's blistering speed either, just having an SSD is a treat. 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, StDragon said:

The Nvidia implementation of switchable graphics based on battery or AC profile is called Optimus. I'm not sure if such an animal exists when working with AMD APUs.

There is but I forget the name of it 

[Forbidden Wafer]

27 minutes ago, leadeater said:

There is but I forget the name of it 

Dynamic Switchable Graphics

[pas008]

anyone here use ryzen controller on their laptop?

[D13H4RD]

11 hours ago, Heliian said:

I don't think it's that new.  There have been power settings on every laptop I've owned and I crank mine up most of the time.  Battery life is a function of power draw, longer battery life sells. 

I think the newest part is nitpicking test results for such trivial things.  98% of people would not notice the difference under regular use.  Nobody buys a laptop for it's blistering speed either, just having an SSD is a treat. 

I think another new part is how a lot of new Windows machines, especially from Tier-1 OEMs, have begun moving the power plans from the Windows Control Panel to whatever pre-installed utility is supplied by the OEM.

 

So it's possible that a lot of these tests were done with the power plan set to "Balanced", even with the slider set to whatever. I've noticed that those tend to have a larger impact on power draw.

[Dabombinable]

8 hours ago, Forbidden Wafer said:

Dynamic Switchable Graphics

And whatever they used during the Windows 7 days (I think it was just switchable graphics - MR HD4250+HD5650 were a nice combo).

[Justaphysicsnerd]

On 7/11/2021 at 1:50 PM, D13H4RD said:

If you've been keeping track of Intel's notoriously petty and face-on-ground marketing, especially for Tiger Lake-based systems (especially when it came to the "Evo" branding), you'd probably see a slide not unlike the one below, where Intel was claiming AMD gets its battery performance claims because it's putting a muzzle on how fast it can go when away from the charger.

This was on a Zen 2-based Renoir APU, and Intel rather cheekily (and quite obviously) left out the fact that its boost behavior does result in higher battery drain during such periods. Now though, with a brand-new lineup of Zen 3-based Cezanne APUs and lots of high-end designs that utilize the best of AMD, one question that some have is whether boosting behavior has been tweaked?

 

Well, it hasn't, not by much anyway.

 

Tests by Gordon Ung noted that while the Ryzen 5800U has shown to smoke the Intel Core i7 1185G7 in many tasks, many of which were while the laptop is connected to AC power. When running on battery, the script does flip, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot.

 

 

 

 

The delta isn't massive when in the "Best Performance" preset, with around a 20-25%-ish performance delta between plugged and unplugged, though the delta between plugged and unplugged when on the "Better Battery" preset is quite significant, though perhaps not entirely unexpected.

 

It's also worth noting that the Intel machine doesn't keep that performance for nothing, as it does chug down quite a lot more watts in bursts in order to maintain that level of performance when off the charger.

 

 

Interestingly, Daniel Rubino of Windows Central noted that the SSD is also throttled when on battery, due to a feature called PCIe Speed Power Policy (PCPP).

 

My thoughts (this is going to be a long one, but you all need to read this!)

The big question that I'm sure many would be asking right now is "Is AMD wrong in doing this?"

 

And the answer is a big straight-up no. What AMD is doing is effectively not that much different from many older laptops, where off-charger performance is significantly hampered in an effort to conserve energy, particularly as processors of that era have not reached the level of performance-per-watt that current-generation designs have managed to achieve. In fact, some of the bench graphs show that Intel does also throttle performance a bit when off the charger, particularly in lightened workloads.

 

And it is definitely worth noting that while these charts do indeed show a drastic drop-off especially in the "Better Battery" mode, it is important to note the context, in which these involve ultra-portable low-wattage laptops. It's more likely that a user would be doing tasks like browsing the web or doing document work on such a machine, where the additional responsiveness of Intel's boost behavior may not be as apparent, but battery saving measures, even at the cost of performance, may be more appreciated. Even Gordon makes that case in his article.

Neither AMD and Intel have a straight up "wrong" strategy here, moreso that they are very different. Intel is very clearly focused on responsiveness at the expense of outright efficiency, whilst AMD is perfectly happy to ease off the pedal significantly in order to gain more work-per-watt. Depending on your priorities, you might find one or the other more appealing.

 

With that said, here is where I get a bit more opiniated and personal. While I perfectly understand each company's reasoning for what they're doing, I am disappointed that there is no real way to fully adjust the way they behave through Windows' power settings. Intel's power consumption spikes are significantly calmer when in "Better Battery", but not usually by a big amount, whilst AMD's performance improves in "Best Performance", there's no real way to fully lift off the muzzle if, for whatever reason, you need all the CPU performance off-the-charger to finish off some work, such as editing photos on Lightroom.

 

While neither philosophies are straight-up wrong, I'm disappointed that I can't really have the option of straight up gimping performance significantly when I need to conserve my watts, or going full-ham on battery when I need to finish off that landscape photograph on Lightroom.

 

Sources

Tested: Is Ryzen 5000 battery performance really that bad?

Some AMD laptops reduce system performance for better battery life, but is that OK?

I mean I bought an HP omen 15 just a few weeks before CES, it has a 5600H and a 1660Ti. And It is one of the best machines out there as it has both the power and the battery life (I got 9-10 hours on regular usage which is pretty good). The Intel laptops which have a D-GPU like a 60series or higher card don't have the battery life when even using the integrated GPU, in fact at the time I bought it. The Intel i7-1085something something was on sale for the same price but since it runs much hotter and doesn't have decent battery life I didn't buy it. The average AMD buyer buys the machine for the efficiency and power not just power

[RejZoR]

This could expain why my Ryzen 2500U was skipping sound and desync video in MPC-HC when I tried watching on battery... As soon as it was plugged, all was fine.