Intel Lunar Lake vs. AMD Strix Point Platform Profile Performance Comparison

In the "power" ACPI Platform Profile mode, the Core Ultra 7 256V was churning through Python benchmarks with a 2.3 Watt average compared to 4.8 Watts for the Ryzen AI 9 365. In the "power" profile mode, the Lunar Lake laptop tended to sip much less power than the Strix Point SoC but not always delivering the best performance-per-Watt.

Those wanting to see even more of this ACPI Platform Profile comparison data for Lunar Lake and Strix Point can see this result page. Keep in mind the Lunar Lake numbers may change in a future kernel release once the ASUS "Whisper" mode is sorted out. Stay tuned to Phoronix for more details once Intel/ASUS is able to provide a solution and then of course more benchmarking. But for those buying a new laptop right now and using a distribution like Ubuntu 24.10, this is what you can expect.

The "performance" mode provided very little uplift over "balance_performance" for either of these ASUS Zenbook laptops. In those modes the Ryzen AI 9 365 was around 28% faster than the Core Ultra 7 256V on Ubuntu 24.10. In the "power" mode, the Ryzen AI 9 365 was 76% faster than the ASUS Zenbook S 14 in the same mode.

In looking at the CPU power consumption over the entire span of benchmarks, running in the power profile dropped the Lunar Lake CPU power average from 15.5 Watts down to just 7.76 Watts on average. The peak was lowered from 28 Watts down to 15 Watts. With the Ryzen AI 9 365 on the ASUS Zenbook S 16, the default balanced performance mode was a 19 Watt average and 34 Watt peak while dropping to the power profile led to a 13 Watt average and 24 Watt peak. For those curious about the ACPI Platform Profile differences for these new ASUS Zenbook S laptops, hopefully these numbers are helpful.

Lunar Lake at the edge / IoT computing in the sub-5W SoC space could be quite interesting...

And the impact of the ACPI Platform Profiles on the peak CPU frequency.

Switching over to the power profile also leads to a nice drop in the CPU temperatures. The Ryzen AI 9 365 within the ASUS Zenbook S 16 was consistently running warmer than the Core Ultra 7 256V within the ASUS Zenbook S 14.

That's where the numbers currently stand for Intel Lunar Lake and AMD Strix Point on Ubuntu 24.10 with the Linux 6.11 kernel. Stay tuned for more follow-up tests once the ASUS Whisper issue for Linux is sorted out and similarly what other AMD and Intel optimizations may be coming down the pipe for Linux laptop users.

For those that appreciate these sort of focused performance/power comparison articles and my other Linux hardware testing that also helps uncover issues like this Lunar Lake ASUS whisper problem, please consider joining Phoronix Premium to help support the site for times like this where having to purchase the hardware at retail for being able to deliver Linux benchmarks/compatibility articles. Or at least turn off your darn ad-blocker. Thanks.