As some extra benchmarks to put out today for the [1]Phoronix.com 21st birthday , there is some additional data points to share on AMD [2]Strix Halo when using Linux 6.15 stable and the early development state of Linux 6.16 Git ahead of its v6.16-rc1 tagging this weekend. The Linux kernel performance is moving in the right direction at least with this round of testing using the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with Ryzen AI Max+ PRO SoC.

I'll have more Linux 6.15 stable and early Linux 6.16 Git performance benchmarking from multiple systems to share next week. But for today are just some preliminary data points for what I've observed with the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 flagship Strix Halo SoC. Strix Halo benchmarking the past few weeks has been a lot of fun and done primarily off Linux 6.14 with Ubuntu 25.04, but I was curious about what may be on the horizon with Linux 6.15+.

Using the same HP ZBook Ultra G1a laptop with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395, I tested Ubuntu 25.04 with its default Linux 6.14 kernel build and then using the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA tested Linux 6.15 and then with a daily snapshot of Linux 6.16 now near the end of the v6.16 merge window.

[3]

There was some interesting movement both for Linux 6.15 and the early Linux 6.16 state. It will be interesting if these improvements carry over at large to other laptops / desktops / servers or is just stemming from more targeted optimizations/improvements. Again, more thorough kernel benchmarks on multiple hardware in the next week once the Linux 6.16 merge window wraps up.

Some of the graphics benchmarks for the integrated [4]Radeon 8060S Graphics were showing slightly better performance with Linux 6.15+. I'll also have another round of Radeon 8050S / 8060S Graphics benchmarks looking at Ubuntu 25.04 versus Mesa 25.2-devel impact and of newer kernels focused on a larger set of gaming/graphics tests in the coming days.

A number of the CPU benchmarks were also showing small but consistent gains on Linux 6.15 and remaining that way with Linux 6.16 Git.

Considering how speedy AMD Ryzen AI Max+ "Strix Halo" SoCs are on Linux 6.14, any additional gains are just icing on the cake.

Linux 6.15+ is looking all the more enticing at least for Strix Halo while hopefully this carries over to other hardware too, stay tuned.

Some CPU-based AI inferencing gains too with the Linux 6.15+ kernels.

A lot of positive movement for the Linux performance on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ with the 6.15 stable and early 6.16 kernels... At least after the Linux 6.15 regressions were fixed ( [5]Linux 6.15 Git Tanked Nginx HTTPS Web Server Performance - Here's The Bisect and [6]A Linux 6.15 Performance Regression Hits Modern AMD CPUs ). Those were fixed in time for Linux 6.15 stable and at least not seeing any AMD Strix Halo performance regressions affecting Linux 6.16 but as mentioned will be conducting more Linux 6.16 performance testing once the merge window closes this weekend.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Phoronix-Turns-21

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Strix+Halo

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2025&image=strix_halo_kernel_lrg

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-radeon-8060s-linux

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-615-nginx-regression

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-615-amd-regression