The upcoming Ubuntu 25.04 Linux OS release will be enabling NVIDIA Dynamic Boost support by default when using their packaged driver support on capable laptops.
NVIDIA Dynamic Boost is a laptop GPU feature that under high GPU utilization will borrow more of the CPU power budget by down-clocking the CPU cores. The NVIDIA Dynamic Boost system-wide power controller relies on the nvidia-powerd daemon to be running on the system for managing the CPU and GPU power sharing. Dynamic Boost can enhance the GPU-bound or CPU-bound performance for modern laptops with NVIDIA dGPUs when running on AC power.
Ubuntu though with their current NVIDIA driver packaging hasn’t been shipping the nvidia-powerd service file. But as a late feature freeze exception, the Ubuntu NVIDIA driver package is now approved to ship that daemon’s service file and enable it by default. Unconditionally shipping the nvidia-powerd service file is fine since for older laptops, desktops, and other unsupported configurations the daemon will simply bail out.
The Ubuntu freeze exception was granted last week for shipping NVIDIA Dynamic Boost by default in the upcoming Ubuntu 25.04 release. Those wanting to learn more about NVIDIA Dynamic Boost on Linux in general can do so via the driver documentation.
