OCTOBER 2020 PCWorld 53of the Ryzen 7 4700U in the budget-priced
Acer Swift 3 (go.pcworld.com/aswf). It’s also
an 8-core CPU, but AMD leaves simultaneous
multi-threading (a.k.a. it’s version of Hyper-
Threading) off. SMT is enabled on the IdeaPad
Slim 7 and we’re looking at a huge
performance bump.
One issue with Cinebench R15 is its short
runtime—maybe a minute, if that. Modern
laptops are all limited by thermals and a short
test doesn’t really tell you how well a laptop
can handle a really long task. For that, we run
HandBrake and encode a 30GB 1080P file
using the Android Tablet preset. On an
ultrabook, it used over an hour to run, and was
really just a test to see how well laptopsThe Ryzen 7 4800U in the IdeaPad Slim 7 is stupidly fast.
As you look at the chart, you should note
the two laptops that are even remotely close
to the IdeaPad’s performance aren’t even the
same class of notebook. Both the Dell XPS 15
7590 with an 8-core Core i9-9980HK (go.
pcworld.com/xp75) and the new Dell XPS 15
9500 with an 8-core Core i7-107850H CPU
(go.pcworld.com/xp95) are basically
4.5-plus-pound, content creation laptops with
discrete GPUs and beefy cooling.
Intel’s 6-core Comet Lake are next up, but
the 4-core laptops aren’t even eating dust
compared to the IdeaPad Slim 7, because the
shock wave from the Ryzen 7 4800U has
sucked the dust with it.
Even more interesting is the performance