We finally have AMD’s Strix Halo in the lab for benchmarking! HP has kindly sent over their ZBook Ultra 14-inch G1a mobile workstation: it’s a beast being powered by the top-end AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 SoC with 16 cores / 32 threads and powerful integrated Radeon 8060S graphics, 128GB of system memory, a nice 14-inch 2.8K display, and other top-end features to provide a dominating laptop powerhouse. In today’s article are the very initial benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Strix Halo SoC under Linux with a focus on the CPU capabilities: a separate article also out today is looking at the AMD Radeon 8060S graphics on Linux.
The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 is the top-end Strix Halo SoC in PRO form and packs in 16 x Zen 5 cores (32 threads) with a 3.0GHz base clock and 5.1GHz maximum boost clock. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 boasts a 64MB L3 cache and runs at a default TDP of 55 Watts but can be configured from 45 to 120 Watts. While the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ (PRO) 395 has begun appearing in the few Strix Halo laptops so far, the Strix Halo SoCs are also expected to begin appearing in small form factor (SFF) desktops and similar thin systems over the coming months, such as the much anticipated Framework Desktop. Along with the sixteen Zen 5 cores is the Radeon 8060S Graphics with the 40 cores and unified memory support — again, see the Radeon 8060S Linux graphics article for all those performance numbers and open-source driver information with this article focused on the CPU performance.
The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 can work out fine on modern Linux distributions: as long as you’re on a modern distribution like say Fedora Workstation 42 or Ubuntu 25.04 you should find the support in good standing. On the laptop side with the HP ZBook Ultra 14-inch G1a it’s overall in good shape too with the one caveat being the web camera support currently lacking mainline kernel support. A separate article in the next week or two will be looking more specifically at the HP ZBook Ultra 14-inch G1a laptop itself. As long as you are on a somewhat recent Linux kernel version you should be in good shape for the compatibility/support while for the Strix Halo graphics obviously the newer the kernel and the newer the Mesa release will mean a better graphics experience.
For all of these initial AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 Linux benchmarks today they were done on Ubuntu 25.04 with the stock Linux 6.14 kernel and other defaults of that Ubuntu Linux release from April. Fortunately with just wrapping up a fresh 21-way Linux laptop comparison on Ubuntu 25.04 it was great timing when hearing from HP they were sending out this ZBook Ultra 14-inch G1a review unit. So for the comparison today is a very large selection of Intel Core and AMD Ryzen laptops available for showcasing the performance and power of the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395. The selection of laptops tested on Ubuntu 25.04 and featured in today’s article included:
– Core i7 8550U – Dell XPS 9370
– Core i7 8565U – Dell XPS 9380
– Core i7 1065G7 – Dell XPS 7390
– Core i7 1165G7 – Dell XPS 9310
– Core i7 1185G7 – Dell XPS 9310
– Core i7 1280P – MSI Prestige 14Evo
– Core Ultra 7 155H – Acer Swift Go 14
– Core Ultra 7 256V – ASUS Zenbook S14
– Core Ultra 7 258V – X1 Carbon G13
– Ryzen 7 4700U – Lenovo IdeaPad 5
– Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U – ThinkPad T14s G2a
– Ryzen 9 5900HX – ASUS ROG Strix G513QY
– Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U – ThinkPad X13 G3
– Ryzen 7 7840U – Acer Swift Edge 16
– Ryzen 7 7840U – Framework 13
– Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U – ThinkPad P14s G4
– Ryzen 7 7840HS – Framework 16
– Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 – ThinkPad T14s G6
– Ryzen AI 9 365 – ASUS Zenbook S16
– Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 – ASUS Zenbook S16
– Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 – Framework 13
– Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 – HP ZBook Ultra G1a
That was based on the recent laptops I had on-hand for carrying out re-testing on Ubuntu 25.04. Unfortunately with having to send back the HP ZBook review samples, I don’t have any other HP ZBook models to show in this Ubuntu 25.04 comparison of their prior generation models that were previously tested at Phoronix.
The SoC power consumption was monitored on a per-test basis for each of the nearly 200 benchmarks ran for this initial AMD Strix Halo Linux comparison.
Let’s see what it looks like harnessing the power of sixteen Zen 5 cores in a laptop form factor under Linux… But before getting to the exciting performance numbers, it’s important to layout the price: $8,250 USD. For the fully-equipped HP ZBook Ultra 14 inch G1a with the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395, 128GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, 2.8K display, etc, the list price is $8,250. The base pricing starts out at $2,599 USD for the AMD Ryzen AI MAX PRO 385 version with 32GB of RAM.
Thanks to HP for sending over this review sample of the HP ZBook Ultra G1a for Linux testing at Phoronix.
