Benchmarks: CPU
It is worth pointing out that, despite the 3000-series branding, the Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U mobile chip is based on last year's 12nm Zen+ architecture, as opposed to the 7nm Zen 2 that has recently appeared on desktop. Don't therefore expect meaningful gains in IPC - the two AMD laptops on show continue to trail Intel alternatives in single-thread PiFast - however it is in the multi-core benchmarks that Zen+ proves its worth.
The quad-core Ryzen 5 3500U ultimately isn't a huge step up from the first-generation 2500U when it comes to sheer speed, but performance is nonetheless impressive during demanding workloads. It's helpful the ThinkPad chassis maintains high frequencies during most tasks, though throttling does inevitably occur in the prolonged HandBrake test, with all-core frequency falling back to 2.5GHz.