The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Review: Unleashing Zen 5 and RDNA 3.5 Into Notebooks
by Gavin Bonshor on July 28, 2024 9:00 AM ESTAI Performance
As technology progresses at a breakneck pace, so do the demands of modern applications and workloads. As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) become increasingly intertwined with our daily computational tasks, it's paramount that our reviews evolve in tandem. To this end, we have AI and inferencing benchmarks in our CPU test suite for 2024.
Traditionally, CPU benchmarks have focused on various tasks, from arithmetic calculations to multimedia processing. However, with AI algorithms now driving features within some applications, from voice recognition to real-time data analysis, it's crucial to understand how modern processors handle these specific workloads. This is where our newly incorporated benchmarks come into play.
Given makers such as AMD with Ryzen AI, with multiple iterations including the XDNA 2 NPU within the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and Intel with their Meteor Lake mobile platform featuring AI-driven hardware, aptly named Intel AI Boost within the silicon, AI, and inferencing benchmarks will be a mainstay in our test suite as we go further into 2024 and beyond. While there's currently no defacto benchmark for AI at the moment, we've compiled a couple of different benchmarks to gauge performance.
As we've said, benchmarking AI is currently something of an oxymoron, as AI models and LLMs are constantly evolving and changing at a rapid pace. There isn't a defined benchmark that tests AI performance from a level playing field, and we're seeing different models being optimized differently on architectures. The other thing is AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm are all implementing their own Neural Processing Units (NPUs) into the silicon, which in part is being driven by Microsoft and their requirement for NPUs to be above 40 TOPS for their Copilot+ PCs.
Our AI model-focused benchmarks show the Ryzen 9 7940HS at the top, marginally over the competition in our DeepSpeech acceleration test. At the same time, AMD takes advantage of our TensorFlow 2.12 tests when using the VGG-16 neural net. When switching to GoogLeNet, we actually see the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Ryzen 9 7940HS trading blows, with Intel trailing in their wake. This is what we mean about measuring AI performance, as Intel, when using OpenVino, is designed to have an advantage.
Currently, we are trying to come up with a way of testing AI performance, especially on hardware with dedicated NPUs, which is on somewhat of a more level playing field. Even the AI benchmarks within the UL Procyon suite aren't a good indicator of where each manufacturer's NPUs are at. Although the Intel-based NPUs are supported, AMD's currently aren't within the test suite, which, again, makes it difficult to find a fair battle to trade blows at.
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Dante Verizon - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
Why are you comparing an ultra-thin design to a CPU with PL2 at almost 90w? The notebookcheck tests show that the Zenbook runs up to 50% slower than the ProArt chassy.Ryan Smith - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
Sorry, which notebook are you referring to? We have multiple Zenbooks here.Terry_Craig - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
He's probably talking about the Zenbook in the review: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-Zenbook-S-16-la...Strix performs much worse on the Zenbook than inside the ProArt, probably due to more aggressive power and temperature management.
Ryan Smith - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
It's definitely not a high performance chassis, despite being 16-inches. The default TDP is just 17 Watts; AMD asked reviewers to bump it up to 28W.But this is what AMD sent out for review. Given the wide range of laptop TDPs out there, these review unit laptops can never cover the full spectrum. So it's more a reflection of what power level/form factor the chipmaker is choosing to prioritize in this generation.
The Hardcard - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
What is the 90W laptop in this review? The other laptops are listed at 28W and 35W here. I did not see any indication of the power specifications of the ProArt on the other site, just some numbers provided. I strongly suspect that laptop is running at top TDP, 45-54W.So, like, a different comparison.
Terry_Craig - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-9-7940HS-P...Depending on the model, the 7940HS goes up to 100w.
The Hardcard - Monday, July 29, 2024 - link
But, is the 7940HS pulling 100w in this review instead of the reported 35w? Otherwise,, what is the point of the complaint?https://www.ultrabookreview.com/69005-asus-proart-...
The HX 370 is in a different chassis pulling 80w sustained. Does that make the 35w vs 28w happening here more fair? I mean, if what the chips can draw elsewhere somehow matters here at all?
eastcoast_pete - Monday, July 29, 2024 - link
It matters if one wants to look at the maximum performance possible, regardless of power draw. But, in addition to what Ryan wrote, the attraction of the HX Series to me is the strong performance at lower power draws. I would have actually liked to see performance comparisons at 17 W, which IMHO is of special interest in such thin and light notebooks. The higher end (> 50 W) will be if interest for Strict Halo, which as far as I can tell is supposed to take on notebooks with smaller dGPUs.ET - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
From the benchmarks here, the 370 looks somewhat disappointing on the CPU front, with some losses to 8 cores Zen 4. A hybrid architecture is always a problem. I wonder if future scheduling changes will help or if the small 8MB L3 for the Zen 5c cores is a problem that can't be overcome.The new GPU however looks like a good upgrade over the previous gen.
nandnandnand - Sunday, July 28, 2024 - link
It's hybrid with different cache amounts, but it's also two CCXs instead of one after 3.5 generations of simple 8-cores. It's hard to say what's screwing it up.Phoronix's review was more positive for the CPU. The main benefit is power efficiency:
https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-...
The reviews I looked at didn't look too good for the GPU. Maybe it will do better with more power, but what it really needs is memory bandwidth. Hopefully AMD brings some Infinity Cache to its mainstream 128-bit APUs in the future.