As productivity-boosting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies change the face of business, the Windows 11 Pro PC and processor model you choose for you and your team are more important than ever. Earlier this year, HP launched the 14-inch EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC powered by Zen 3+ AMD^® Ryzen^™ premium laptop processors. What benefits can this combo deliver that its competitors can’t?

In our hands-on tests, the 14-inch HP EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC with an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7035 Series PRO mobile processor received higher general and AI performance benchmark scores, provided longer battery life, and delivered better physical experiences than 12-core Intel^® vPro^® with Intel Core^™ Ultra 7 processor-based Dell^™ and Lenovo^® laptops.

How we tested

When your goal is to boost enterprise knowledge workers’ productivity with new Windows 11 Pro PCs, you need to consider a number of factors. We tested the performance, battery life, and user comfort on three enterprise-level options with the following configurations:

We focused our testing on battery life and processor capabilities, but we recognize that CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage all play important roles in the overarching performance picture. To create a level playing field, we equipped each PC with 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of PCIe^® storage. This is more than enough RAM and SSD storage to power the benchmarking tools we used in testing:

• 3DMark^® Fire Strike
• Cinebench 2024
• Geekbench AI
• LM Studios
• PassMark PerformanceTest 11
• Procyon^® AI Computer Vision Benchmark

We also looked at the relationship between battery life and performance by running the MobileMark 30 battery life benchmark twice. First, we tested with the PCs in the Windows 11 Pro “Balanced” power mode. Then, we repeated the test with the PCs in “Best power efficiency” power mode. Finally, because high-end processors can generate a lot of heat and the fans used to cool these components can be loud, we recorded the heat and noise output of each PC while using the resource-intensive Cinebench 2024 workload for an extended period.

Finally, to see how long each laptop would run Microsoft Teams while unplugged and in “Best power efficiency” power mode, we simulated a long-running collaboration scenario among nine participants using the popular video-conferencing app.

Note: The graphs in this report use different scales to keep a consistent size. Please be mindful of each graph’s data range as you compare.

AI performance

Geekbench AI uses large datasets to simulate real-world use cases and evaluate machine learning, deep learning, and AI-centric workload performance.¹⁰ In our Geekbench testing, we used the Open Neural Network Exchange (ONNX) AI framework as well as the DirectML AI backend for machine learning on Windows. LM Studio uses local large language models (LLMs) to evaluate AI Chat capabilities.¹¹ In our LM Studios testing, we used the Llama 3 LLM to capture token metrics. Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark uses a variety of inference engines to gauge machine learning application performance.¹² In our Procyon testing, we used the Windows ML inference API on the AMD-based system and the Intel OpenVINO inference API on the Intel-based systems. The Windows ML API allowed the use of AMD hardware acceleration features, while the OpenVINO API is optimized for Intel CPU, GPU, and NPU inference.

Battery life

To see how changing Windows 11 Pro power modes affected performance and battery life, we measured battery life and system responsiveness in both “Balanced” and “Best power efficiency” power plan modes. MobileMark 30 factors in both DC (unplugged) performance and battery life for the MobileMark 30 Index composite score.¹³ Higher Index scores denote a better balance between performance and battery life. Lower Index scores indicate that the longer battery life came at the price of performance or vice versa. In these comparisons, while the HP and Dell comparison was a toss-up, the HP EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC consistently lasted longer and scored higher than the Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 5.

Collaboration

For the collaboration assessment, we set up a Microsoft Teams video-conferencing meeting for nine participants and measured how long the devices’ batteries held out.

User comfort

Sometimes, opting for high-performing processors can mean users have to deal with more heat or noise coming from the PC. If your team members work with their PCs on their laps or in common areas where excessive noise output can bother others, this can be a real issue. For our hands-on tests, the ambient room temperature was 75.3 degrees Fahrenheit and ambient room noise was 23.5 decibels (dBA). We ran the resource-intensive Cinebench 2024 media-rendering benchmark six times: three times for thermal testing and three times for acoustic testing. Figure 12 shows the median performance scores we captured during the thermal runs. Figures 13 and 14 show the median temps and noise levels.

In this comparison, we found that the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7735U processor-powered HP EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC received comparable or higher performance scores and was as whisper-quiet as the Intel vPro with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U-powered Dell Latitude 5450 and Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 laptops. For reference, 10 dBA is equivalent to normal breathing, 30 dBA is whispering, and 40 dBA is what you’d hear in a quiet office or residential area.¹⁴

The big difference was in thermal output, with the Intel vPro with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U-based Dell Latitude 5450 and Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 laptops generating almost 30 degrees more heat off the bottom than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7735U processor-powered HP EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC.

Conclusion

Our hands-on system responsiveness and battery life tests show that investing in 14-inch HP EliteBook 605 Series Notebook PCs powered by next-gen AMD Ryzen 7035 Series processors could help set up your workforce for success. We found that an HP EliteBook 645 G11 Notebook PC with an 8-core AMD Ryzen PRO 7735U processor received higher benchmark scores, provided longer battery life, and ran cooler and quieter under load than 12-core Intel vPro with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U-based Dell Latitude 5450 and Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 laptops.