Pre-Ordered The ASUS Zenbook S 14 For Intel Core Ultra "Lunar Lake" Linux Testing
The last time I received any laptop directly from Intel Corp was all the way back during the Sandy Bridge days when receiving one of their software development platform for testing of Sandy Bridge Linux support... Yes, about 13 years ago. It still works for the occasional Linux long-time historical comparisons.
While eventually we end up seeing laptops from the more Linux-friendly vendors with the likes of Framework Computer and TUXEDO Computers or System76 further in the product's lifecycle, for delivering close to launch-day Linux testing of interesting Intel laptop SoCs it's basically up to purchasing a laptop for testing at Phoronix due to the lack of Linux interest from the Intel marketing folks or other major laptop vendors. Last year for the Meteor Lake launch I bought the Acer Swift Go 14 while for Lunar Lake overnight I pre-ordered the ASUS Zenbook S 16 model UX5406SA.
As with past laptop launches, my key priority is finding one that I can get on launch-day or as close to launch-day as possible... Typically Best Buy has worked out well with laptop pre-orders in getting them either on launch day or over the years a few times 1~2 days early. From the laptops announced so far for the Core Ultra 200V series, interesting me the most were either the Dell XPS or ASUS laptops. Lenovo also announced some initial Lunar Lake laptops but they aren't set to be available until November and thus immediately ruled them out.
There are some MSI Lunar Lake laptops coming to market as well but their pre-orders hadn't yet opened and thus not clear how close they'll be to ~24 September. Plus going for an ASUS Zenbook is ideal considering my AMD Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" Linux testing has also been done using the ASUS Zenbook laptops. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and Ryzen AI 9 365 Linux testing has all been done using two ASUS Zenbook models.
The ASUS Zenbook S 14 UX5406SA-S14.U71TB features a 14-inch 2880 x 1800 120Hz AMOLED display, 12 hour rated battery life, 1TB SSD, and using the Core Ultra 7 256V SoC. The Core Ultra 7 256V has 16GB of RAM, up to 4.8GHz P-Core clock frequency, 3.7GHz E-Core clock frequency, and Intel Arc 140V Xe2 graphics.
ASUS also announced this week the ASUS Zenbook S 14 - UX5406SA-PH79T that features an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V that is nearly identical to the 256V but with 32GB of RAM instead. The UX5406SA carries a $100 USD premium over the 256V model. I was debating between the two but for only having 8 cores anyways 16GB would be sufficient for the Linux testing and helping to keep costs down due to the struggle of the web ad industry these days... Plus this laptop is just to be used dedicated for Lunar Lake Linux testing and not any other tasks. The ASUS UX5406SA-PH79T also wasn't available from Best Buy but only ASUS directly and was unsure how well their pre-order shipping times are compared to my good experiences in the past getting Best Buy pre-orders ahead of the planned launch date.
So as of this morning the ASUS Zenbook S 14 X5406SA-S14.U71TB is pre-ordered and should be arriving 24~26 September for Linux testing. So for those interested in the Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 under Linux, stay tuned and in three weeks I should begin having a lot of details around the Lunar Lake Linux support and performance benchmarking. On the support/compatibility side the main open matter is the Xe2 graphics requiring Linux 6.12+ and Mesa 24.2+ for out-of-the-box support but I'll see if there are any other quirks and then also very interested in seeing the Linux performance across my range of hundreds of benchmarks. Those as well interested in seeing Intel Lunar Lake on Linux for compatibility and stressing it across hundreds of benchmarks can subscribe to Phoronix Premium (or tips via PayPal or Stripe) to help out when having to buy hardware for Linux testing during these difficult times for web publishers. Should be a fun direct showdown for ASUS Zenbooks between the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series Strix Point and Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake.
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