Intel-Nvidia vs Intel-AMD vs AMD-Nvidia: Which one performs best?

[fat8893]

Greetings. First of all, a joyous Happy New Year 2019 to you all. I hope that you guys are enjoying your holiday. :smile:

Now that we entered 2019, my current HP convertible laptop is nearly 4 to 4.5 years old now and I am seriously thinking of replacing it. I haven't decide on which laptop I want to have right now because I just thought of something.

We see bucket loads of laptop with Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU, but very rarely we see laptops with Intel CPU and AMD GPU, or even AMD CPU with Nvidia GPU. This got me wondering: Out of these three setup, which one would perform best? Let's just assume that I am looking for high-end, flagship laptop/2-in-1/convertible for my car racing sim games and all of my essential Adobe softwares like Lightroom, Muse and Premiere Pro. Touchscreen and pen or stylus support would be an added bonus, if available.

 

[HeyCori]

If you're talking just pure performance then Intel continues to be the market leader no matter what combination of hardware you're trying to get in a laptop. If you're looking for performance plus price than you can't really beat AMD. But with the overwhelming majority of laptops being Intel based, it's hard to even start recommending AMD because there's likely an Intel based laptop that can get the job done for roughly the same cost.

 

[ochhanz]

Greetings. First of all, a joyous Happy New Year 2019 to you all. I hope that you guys are enjoying your holiday. :smile:

Now that we entered 2019, my current HP convertible laptop is nearly 4 to 4.5 years old now and I am seriously thinking of replacing it. I haven't decide on which laptop I want to have right now because I just thought of something.

We see bucket loads of laptop with Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU, but very rarely we see laptops with Intel CPU and AMD GPU, or even AMD CPU with Nvidia GPU. This got me wondering: Out of these three setup, which one would perform best? Let's just assume that I am looking for high-end, flagship laptop/2-in-1/convertible for my car racing sim games and all of my essential Adobe softwares like Lightroom, Muse and Premiere Pro. Touchscreen and pen or stylus support would be an added bonus, if available.

, I am in a similar boat as you, also looking to replace my convertible laptop. The new Picasso AMD procs (3500u, 3700u, 3750h etc) look promising from the game benchmarks on youtube and AMD says battery life will be improved. E.g. the Ryzen 5 3500u seems to be fast enough to play Rage 2 on 768p with 30 fps. That seems to be similar to the nvidia mx150/mx250.
What is important to keep in mind you probably need to update drivers yourself from AMD's site to get the most out of these Ryzen procs (/processors), though the same is true for nvidia I guess.

Sadly the mx250 itself was a rebrand this year, those that one is probably not interesting for the price.

I am guessing that also around october there will be new convertibles with the nvidia 1650 gpu to replace the 1050/1050ti ones. The 1650, compared to the AMD Ryzen / mx150 is more expensive but will probably have ~2.5 times the graphics power (depending on the cooling solution of the laptop).

As for cpu performance, Ryzen u and Intel u are similar. Intel has the benefit when you want a h core (consumes more energy but better for long cpu stress times since they offer h procs with 6 cores instead of 4.

So if you are on the budget tour & prefer light devices over workhorses: than probably Ryzen (the 3500u will be speed sweet spot budget wise, though the 3700u could potentially be very good if laptop oems don't mess it up).
If you have the money to spend: than probably Intel i5 + Nvidia 1650.

Hope that helps.

....

, I think OP is talking about convertible laptops not desktops, so the situation is different. Also I would recommend Ryzen cpu above intel cpu for desktops since you already see modern games using more and more cores, so AMD will be more futureproof and better price/performance.

 

[Akshay M]

Intel CPU models offer integrated GPU that is sufficient for browsing the internet, playing casual browser and some online games at lower video settings. If you are a PC user with such needs, then you do not need to buy additional discrete GPU, but go with “the free Intel GPU” instead.

AMD GPU models can be recommended at their MSRP. Particularly the RX570, RX580, and Vega have demonstrated the ability to provide on par or better performance when compared to Nivida in some newer DX12 games (for example FarCry 5). If you aim for a cheap high refresh FreeSync gaming monitor then a better choice for you are these AMD models.

NVIDIA GPU models are in better supply and with moderate prices can be recommended. Specifically for 1080p gaming, the GTX1060 is a great choice, while a cheap GTX1070 on a current promo price would be your best choice now. However, if you want to get a “green team” GPU then wait a bit for the new Volta or Ampere gaming line-up from NVIDIA. You will be rewarded with better performance and lower power consumption for the same money.