AMD Ryzen 5 2500U Raven Ridge Benchmarks Revisited: HP Envy x360 15z SSD Update

When we launched our early preview look at AMD Ryzen Mobile performance with the new HP Envy x360 15z laptop last week, we expected it would pull in a few eyeballs. Our benchmark results were likely some of the first anyone had seen that showed what AMD's Ryzen core CPU architecture, coupled with its Radeon RX Vega GPU on the same piece of silicon, could do versus a plethora of Intel 7th and 8th Gen Core series laptops. We wanted to paint a detailed picture of its performance characteristics across various workloads and answer a few other questions a long the way regarding other aspects, like battery life. But in the end, we were left with a few questions as well, after testing the model we picked up at retail, as it was configured "out-of-the-box."

As it turned out, the only model of HP Envy x360 with Ryzen Mobile that we could get our hands on at the time, was equipped with a pokey spinning hard drive. So we focused our testing specifically on benchmarks that were not storage subsystem sensitive, in an effort to level the playing field the best we could. It's the nature of the beast testing laptops; there are many variables at play between model families and OEM brands. Regardless, naturally, folks wanted to know how AMD's Ryzen Mobile platform would perform when configured with a fast PCI Express NVMe Solid State Drive (as did we). What sort of general performance improvements would be realized? How would this model of HP laptop perform in terms of battery life with an SSD upgrade? These were all valid questions, especially since HP does offer a PCIe SSD upgrade option in the Envy x360's configuration list. 

Though we didn't relish the requirement to pull torx screws and get out the spudger to pry open this AMD Ryzen 5 2500U-powered oyster, for our readers we'd do almost anything. So that's what we did. Eat your heart out iFixit. 

HP Envy x360 15z With Ryzen Mobile Specifications & Features

Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 2500U (4C/8T, 6MB cache, 3.6GHz Boost) w/ Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
Display	15.6" diagonal FHD UWVA micro-edge WLED-backlit multitouch (1920 x 1080)
Graphics	Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
Memory	8 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM (2 x 4 GB), Up to 16GB Available
Storage	1 TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD, NVMe PCIe SSD options available **Upgraded in-house to Samsung 960 EVO 500GB (Intel SSDs can be ordered with this model)
WiFi	802.11ac (2x2) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 Combo
External I/O Ports	1 USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 1 (Data Transfer up to 5 Gb/s, DP1.4, HP Sleep and Charge); 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 (1 HP Sleep and Charge); 1 HDMI v2.0b; 1 headphone/microphone combo
Webcam	HP Wide Vision FHD IR Camera with Dual array digital microphone
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Battery	3-cell, 55.8 Wh Lithium-ion prismatic Battery
Dimensions	14.16 x 9.8 x 0.77 inches
Weight	4.75 pounds
Warranty	1 Year Limited Hardware Warranty, 90 day phone support
Pricing	Starting at $729 And As Tested With HDD

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Feel free to cross check with our original coverage of the HP Envy x360 with AMD Ryzen Mobile, but we've also pulled those original hard drive-powered numbers in here as a reference point. Take note that we actually mirrored the hard drive volume image over to the SSD so we had an identical OS installation. The only difference is that we installed the Samsung NVMe driver to for use with the Samsung SSD in its series of tests. In any event, the results may surprise you. 

PCMark 10 Testing With AMD Ryzen 5 2500U

We stayed away from Futuremark's PCMark suite on our first outing with the Ryzen 5 2500U-powered HP Envy x360, because many of its tests are affected by storage subsystem performance. Virtually all of our comparison data for other machines was captured on SSDs, while this new budget HP laptop would be at a disadvantage with its HDD. However, this time around, we've fired up both the Samsung 960 EVO-equipped Ryzen Mobile-powered Envy x360 config, as well as the original HDD-equipped setup for comparison in the latest version of PCMark. 

PCMark 10 has been updated for Windows 10 with new workloads that cover a more current swath of various desktop and laptop usage models. The Essentials module encompasses every day computing workloads for mainstream users, like web browsing, video conferencing and application loading. The Productivity module, as you might guess, employs office productivity tools from the LibreOffice suite, for tasks like word processing and spreadsheets. The Digital Content Creation suite engages tests machines with photo editing (utilizing GIMP), video editing, vizualization, and rendering tasks. The DCC suite is by far the most CPU-intensive and is indicative of a workstation PC usage model. 

We've sorted the following results in order of the overall PCMark 10 score, which is graphed in the gray color bar below, along with the other individual tests in the entire benchmark suite. 

Geekbench 4 And Cinebench

Looking closer at more general purpose workloads and straight-up processing throughput, we have Geekbench 4 and Cinebench. Cinebench is a test that works both the CPU and GPU engines of the processors. It's developed by Maxon, which is better known for its Cinema 4D software employed in professional 3D rendering and animation. Geekbench is a cross-platform benchmark that pushes simulated workloads designed to mimic real world processing requirements for functions like image processing and particle physics. We tested both of Cinebench’s integrated benchmarks for CPU and GPU, along with Geekbench's Single-Core and Multi-Core CPU test workloads.