Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the pace—and face—of business. That makes the PC and processor combo you choose for yourself or your team more important than ever. Earlier this year, HP launched the 14-inch EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC powered by next-gen Zen 4 technology-based AMD^® Ryzen^™ premium laptop processors. How does this powerful combination compare to Intel^® Core^™ Ultra processor-based AI PCs on the market?

In our hands-on system responsiveness and battery life tests, the 14-inch HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC with an 8-core AMD Ryzen 8040 Series PRO mobile processor delivered more than a full day’s worth of battery life and received higher CPU- and GPU-focused benchmark scores than 12-core Intel vPro^® with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor-based Dell^™ and Lenovo^® laptops. Read on for the full story.

How we tested

When your goal is enabling enterprise knowledge workers in office or hybrid settings, you need to consider a number of factors before investing in new Windows 11 Pro PCs. We tested the performance, battery life, and user experience with the following specific configurations:

We focused our testing mostly on battery life and processor capabilities, but we recognize that CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage all pay important roles in the overarching performance picture. To create a level playing field, we equipped each PC with 32 GB of memory and 512 GB of SSD storage. This is more than enough RAM and SSD storage to power the benchmarking tools we used in testing:

To look at the relationship between battery life and performance, we ran the MobileMark 30 battery life benchmark with the PCs in the Windows 11 Pro “Balanced” and “Best power efficiency” power modes. We also measured how long each laptop would run Microsoft Teams while unplugged and in “Best power efficiency”power mode during a collaboration scenario among nine participants. To gauge user comfort, we recorded the heat and noise output of each PC while using the resource-intensive Cinebench 2024 workload for an extended period.

The results we report reflect the specific configurations we tested. Any difference in the configurations—as well as screen brightness, network traffic, and software additions—can affect these results. For a deeper dive into our testing parameters and procedures, see the science behind the report.

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.

Battery life

We then evaluated battery life and system responsiveness for general users and users who want as much battery life as possible. To see how changing power modes affected performance and battery life, we measured battery life and system responsiveness in Windows 11 Pro “Balanced” and “Best power efficiency” power modes. MobileMark 30 factors in both DC (unplugged) performance and battery life for the MobileMark 30 Index composite score.⁵ 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 both MobileMark 30 comparisons, the HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC powered by an AMD Ryzen PRO 8840U processor provided all-day battery life and received higher DC performance and Index scores than its competitors. Higher MobileMark 30 scores can translate to a more responsive experience when using resource-intensive productivity apps, financial analysis tools, computer-aided design programs, and more.

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.

Unleash creativity and productivity

Whether you and your team are tackling compute-intensive projects that involve computer vision and machine learning or graphics-intensive projects such as content creation, the results of these benchmarks can provide good insight into performance both now and in the future. Higher CPU- and GPU-based benchmarking scores can also indicate faster speeds in new and emerging AI-enabled productivity and creative tools.

Graphics-intensive performance

We evaluated the PCs’ graphic performance using the 3DMark benchmark. 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy workloads scan a system’s hardware and estimate the frame rates you can expect when using CPU- and GPU-intensive applications.⁶ Better graphic performance can translate to faster response times from demanding scientific simulations, product design and development software, and financial analysis programs.

Content creation performance

We used benchmarks that stressed the PCs’ hardware with resource-intensive video- and photo-editing tasks. Cinebench 2024 measures a CPU’s multi-core performance by rendering a 3D scene.¹⁰ Procyon Photo Editing Benchmark uses Adobe^® Creative Cloud^® applications in a photo-editing workflow that includes batch processing and image retouching.¹¹ Procyon Video Editing Benchmark uses Adobe Premiere Pro in a video-editing workflow that includes importing video files, editing them, adding effects, and exporting them.¹²

AI/ML performance

Geekbench AI uses large datasets to simulate real-world use cases and evaluate machine learning, deep learning, and AI-centric workload performance.¹³ 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.¹⁴ In our LM Studio 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.¹⁵ 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.

The work-from-anywhere user physical experience

Sometimes, opting for high-performing processors can mean you 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 hoteling or hot-desking areas where excessive noise can bother others, this can be a real issue.

The HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC includes HP Smart Sense, which “redirects resources to just the programs that need it, creating lower temperatures and triggering appropriate fan speeds.”¹⁶ We tested all three laptops with their built-in intelligent features turned on. We also set each laptop to the highest performance power mode available with the intelligent thermal options enabled.

HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC

• AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U processor
• Best performance power mode
• HP Smart Sense

Dell Latitude 7450 laptop

• Intel vPro with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U
• Best performance power mode
• Dell Optimizer

Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop

• Intel vPro with Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U
• Balanced power mode
• Lenovo Intelligent Cooling

For reference, the ambient room temperature was between 74.1 and 74.8 degrees Fahrenheit and ambient room noise was between 23.4 and 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 15 shows the median performance scores captured during the thermal runs. Figures 16 and 17 show the median temps and noise levels from the separate 30-minute runs.

In this comparison, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U processor-powered HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC outperformed both competitors—with comparable heat and audio output under load. While these temps may seem high, they’re all well within the safe range of normal workloads, which is between 104° and 149°F, and well below the 176°F cap for a resource-intensive workload such as Cinebench 2024.¹⁷ As for the decibel outputs, 10dBA is equivalent to normal breathing, 30dBA is whispering, and 40dBA is what you’d hear in a quiet office or residential area.¹⁸

Conclusion

Above all, the PC and processor combo you invest in must empower your team to embrace emerging AI technologies, complete projects as quickly as possible, and provide enough battery life to sustain work when outlets are unavailable. In our hands-on system responsiveness and battery life tests, we found that a 14-inch HP EliteBook 845 G11 Notebook PC powered by an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U processor provided all-day battery life, a comfortable user experience, and received higher CPU- and GPU-focused benchmark scores compared to 12-core Intel Core Ultra 7 processor 165U-based Dell Latitude 7450 and Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptops.