Like most modern Intel and AMD laptops, the new ASUS Zenbook S 16 models for the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" support ACPI Platform Profiles for allowing the system platform behavior to be modified depending upon whether you are seeking maximum performance, balanced (default), or power savings/efficiency. With the [1]Ryzen AI 9 365 and [2]Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 testing I have been doing thus far it's been on the default balanced mode (along with other laptops being compared) while in this article is a look at the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 performance impact on the ASUS Zenbook S 16 UM5606WA when trying the other platform profile options.

Similar to my [3]platform profile testing with other laptops in recent years, this is a look at the ASUS Zenbook S 16 UM5606WA power and performance when running in the balanced mode (default) or opting for the performance or power saver profiles. On modern Linux desktops the platform profiles can be easily manipulated from the GUI while can also be manipulated from the CLI with the sysfs interfaces.

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This benchmarking was simply testing the available platform profile options as shown in the GNOME desktop on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS while using the Linux 6.10 kernel. In addition to looking at the raw performance impact, the CPU SoC power consumption was monitored for the performance-per-Watt along with recording the peak CPU frequency (highest frequency observed across any of the cores) as well as the CPU core temperature.

In the default balanced mode in addition to the ACPI Platform Profile being balanced, the amd-pstate-epp driver is running in powersave mode and with an Energy Performance Preference (EPP of balance_performance. When running in the performance mode the amd-pstate-epp governor is set to performance, the EPP is performance, and the platform profile is performance. Then in the power saver mode the amd-pstate-epp governor is powersave, the EPP is power, and the platform profile is low-power.

This testing was all done with the ASUS Zenbook S 16 UM5606WA bearing the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with integrated Radeon 890M RDNA3.5 graphics, 32GB of LPDDR5-7500 memory, and 1TB NVMe storage. The platform profile behavior in large part is a vendor-specific matter so depending upon your Strix Point laptop you may see different results compared to this UM5606WA laptop.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-9-365

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-370

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/search/platform+profile

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=asus-zenbook-s16-power&image=strix_point_profile_lrg