Also note that this processor integrates a Radeon 890M graphics card with RDNA 3.5 architecture, which, as we have already seen in the news in recent days, is much more powerful than the Radeon 780M, which is the integrated one that we saw until now in laptops with an AMD processor. We will check it of course, but according to the technical data, it has 16 CUs, 33% more than the previous generation.
According to AMD, these new processors are designed and optimized for low-power laptops, as their efficiency makes them ideal for good battery life. At the same time, AMD claims that this generation offers a CPI increase of 16% compared to the previous generation, which are quite notable numbers.
For the rest, we already know the ASUS Zenbook S16 well, so we won’t go into details.
New architectures: Zen 5, XDNA 2 and RDNA 3.5
Zen 5 is the next big step on AMD’s roadmap. It’s an all-new design that delivers high performance and power efficiency (come on, as always with new generations), while at the same time delivering a double-digit increase in IPC performance. It has twice the instruction bandwidth, data bandwidth, and twice the AI performance compared to Zen 4.
For its part, architecture United States 2 NPU offers AI computing power of up to 50 TOPS, depending on the processor. As we have mentioned several times before, this “PC with AI” is just pure marketing smoke, and the correct thing would be to say that it is “PC for AI”, because it is about accelerating the performance of AI applications in the PC, such as chatbots, AI assistants (like Copilot+) or generative AI applications (like the latest version of Photoshop, which fills or modifies images using AI).
Regarding the graphic architecture rDNA 3.5represents an interesting improvement in terms of power and efficiency. In addition to having a greater number of CUs, these offer better performance, speeding up games considerably. Of course, we will put this to the test in this analysis.
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Performance Test
Let’s start as usual with a screenshot of CPU-Z, to see what this well-known software reveals about the processor and memory.
Well, CPU-Z managed to collect all the data of the processor, including the model (which instead of appearing in “Name”, appears in “Specification”). The core speed varies a lot with the opened software, on the screenshot it is seen at 4.2 GHz but it varies all the time between 2 and 4.8 GHz.
As for integrated graphics, let’s see what they tell us. GPU-Z.
In this case, as you can see, the software detects the name of the iGPU well, but it is not able to read much more data beyond its memory.
We will start with general performance tests, beyond the processor itself but dependent on it. For example, the PCIe 4.0 lanes are linked to the processor and for this reason, the performance of the SSD depends on it. So let’s start by measuring its behavior. CrystalDisk Brand.
The result is pretty typical for a PCIe 4.0 SSD: around 5,000 MB/s read and around 3,600 MB/s write. Nothing out of the ordinary, which means that the performance is pretty good and will help speed up the installation and loading of programs and games, as well as reduce the PC boot time, etc.
We will continue to measure the RAM performance; Two 7500 MHz DDR5 memory modules have been installed in this laptop, so let’s see how they perform with Aida64.
Well, apparently and according to this benchmark, the RAM performance is excellent, and it is surprising to see this on a computer with an AMD processor since it almost always has quite a few memory management issues because of its controller. By the way, the cache performance is also excellent.
But let’s see how it behaves in a more real situation with SuperPiwhich will require the processor to calculate 32 million decimal places of the number Pi and store them in RAM in an intensive task for both components.
Okay, so it’s not the best result we’ve seen on a laptop, but just over 7 minutes in this test is a notable result.
We will now continue with a CPU rendering performance test, with Cinebench 2024and there is a nuance here that we must explain to you.
The performance in the single-core test is decent, with 109 points which is in line with expectations, but the 692 points obtained in the multi-core test are well below what they should be (according to AMD, the score here should be around 941 points). Why? Because, unfortunately, it seems that the sample laptop that AMD sent us suffered an accident and has problems with its cooling system.
At rest, the laptop is always at a temperature between 60 and 70ºC, and when you run a benchmark that sets it to maximum, it immediately reaches 100ºC, at which point Thermal Throttling kicks in and its performance is noticeably reduced; this is what happened to us here.
It’s not because the processor is getting too hot, it’s because there is a failure in the laptop’s cooling system, possibly during transport from the US to Europe, since this equipment was sent to us directly by AMD from there. In normal conditions, we would send this laptop under warranty and they would send us a replacement, but unfortunately we didn’t have time for that if we wanted to publish this review in time for its launch.
So keep this in mind: In the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test, we should have gotten a score of around 941 points, which is not bad for a laptop processor.
We continue performance testing with Geekbench 6.
The result obtained in Geekbench is very good and is also higher than expected according to what AMD told us, so we continue to move forward. Now let’s move on to a more global performance test of the equipment with PCMark 10.
Again more or less living up to expectations, this laptop will offer us remarkable performance in any type of daily use, such as web browsing, video conferencing, image editing, office automation, etc.
Moving on to 3D performance testing, there is nothing better than the following 3DMarkand we start as always with the three tests of Fire stick This will measure the performance of the integrated Radeon 890M at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p resolution with the DirectX 11 graphics API.
Well hey, again a very good result, and the benchmark itself tells us that we could, for example, play Battlefield V in 1440p and with the graphics in ultra at more than 35 FPS, so by relaxing the graphics settings a little we could easily have the desired 60 FPS.
We move on to Time Spywhich is a similar test but using the DirectX 12 graphics API.
Here again the result is rather good, and with DirectX 12 this Radeon 890M is even better and indicates to us that we can expect 40 FPS in the same conditions as before.
How does the Radeon 890M perform in games?
However, while a benchmark tells you what performance you can expect, we wanted to test this laptop in some games for ourselves. We’re familiar with the performance of the previous-gen Radeon 780M, so expectations for this 890M are pretty high.
So we tested a few games, all in Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080), with the graphics settings on “low” and with the power profile on balanced (this means that if we raise the profile to performance mode, we can expect better results). Here is the average FPS we got during our tests:
Well, obviously in some games we cannot reach the stable 60 FPS on average, even by relaxing the graphics settings, but there are many others that are perfectly playable and enjoyable, even by increasing some settings. For example, Doom Eternal, F1 2023 or Shadow of the Tomb Raider maintain an average FPS above 70, which means that in less demanding titles like Counter-Strike 2 or League of Legends we can play without problems at a high frame rate. per second.
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in AI tasks
At the moment it is quite complicated to measure “AI performance”, because as we said, the NPU integrated into the AMD Ryzen AI 300 processors simply serves to improve performance in tasks that run this type of content, such as chatbots or generative AI applications. What we can tell you, however, is our experience using them.
We basically used two AI applications: Copilot+ and Photoshop. However, in both cases you actually connect to the developer’s servers to get the results generated by the AI, and it’s not that the CPU’s NPU has much influence. There are, however, “tricks” so that, for example, Phosothop does not connect to Adobe’s servers to get the results.
What we can tell you is that AI image generation with Photoshop on this laptop is, locally, much faster than if the application were connected to Adobe servers. However, it must also be explained that the result is worse, especially because Adobe’s AI is already much more trained. But hey, in terms of performance, it’s quite appreciable, even if there is still some way to go to really take advantage of the local processor’s NPU.
Conclusion and verdict
The next generation of AMD laptop processors is already here, and the result is pretty good. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 isn’t exactly a hugely impressive processor either, but it’s the start of the good path AMD has taken in its laptop processor ecosystem, and it offers all the features you’d expect from a high-end laptop processor. .top with a few additions that still need a bit of polishing, but overall they look good.
In short, we think AMD has got its new generation of laptop processors off to a good start with the Ryzen AI 300, these are high-powered and highly efficient processors with plenty of features designed for the future, so what can we tell you is a common expression: the best is yet to come.
Concretely, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 that we tested proved to be a very reliable processor, with particular attention to the improvements in terms of RAM management now implemented with Zen 5, and which manages to offer good performance with moderate consumption, although in our case with high temperatures.
For all these reasons, we believe it deserves our Gold award, as well as our recommendation for its design, that is, all the architectural improvements it brings to its credit.
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