AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 vs Ryzen 7 7840U: Preliminary Strix Point APU performance tests reveal notable multi-core and IPC gain

AMD took the wraps off two Strix Point APUs at Computex 2024. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 follow the company’s new naming scheme and feature the Zen 5 CPU architecture alongside RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 890M and 880M iGPUs. Notebooks based on the APUs are expected to be available in July.

The new Ryzen AI 9 APUs should be a marked improvement over the current crop of Ryzen APUs in both CPU and GPU departments. For instance, AMD claimed during its Computex 2024 presentation that the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with its 12 cores and a boost clock of 5.1 GHz is up to 73% faster than the Core Ultra 9 185H and up to 93% faster than the Apple M3. However, the company didn’t make any performance claims for the Ryzen AI 9 365.

Fortunately, we now have a decent look at the Ryzen AI 9 365 as David Huang has conducted a series of tests on a pre-production Ryzen AI 9 365 machine to measure the relative performance and the IPC of the Zen 5 and the Zen 5c cores of the APU. More interestingly, the results have been compared with the Ryzen 7 7735U (Zen 3) and the Ryzen 7 7840U (Zen 4) processors.

Ryzen AI 9 365 IPC and relative performance in SPEC CPU 2017

Before we move on to the benchmark results, it is important to mention that the Zen 5 cores on the Ryzen AI 9 365 were locked to 4.8 GHz like the Ryzen 7 7735U and the Ryzen 7 7840U. The smaller Zen 5c cores were operating at a much lower 3.3 GHz.

In the SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark, David Huang notes that the Zen 5 cores on the Ryzen AI 9 365, labeled as “Strix Zen 5”, posted a performance improvement of 22.28% and 9.71% vs the Ryzen 7 7735U and the Ryzen 7 7840U respectively. The Zen 5c cores, understandably, showed a regression of about 15.35%.

When it comes to IPC, the Zen 5 cores on Ryzen AI 9 365 showcased an improvement of 9.71% vs Zen 4 cores on the Ryzen 7 7840U whereas the Zen 5c cores landed at 10.47%.

Ryzen AI 9 365 in Geekbench 6/5

When it comes to single-core Geekbench 6 benchmarks, the Ryzen AI 9 365 proved to be 40.94% faster than the Ryzen 7 7735U and 13% ahead of the Ryzen 7 7840U. The Geekbench 5 single-core figures of the Strix Zen 5 are relatively similar with the Ryzen AI 9 365 posting an improvement of 38.65% vs the Ryzen 7 7735U and a smaller 15.3% delta vs the Ryzen 7 7840U.

On the multi-core side of things, the Ryzen AI 9 365 managed to post impressive numbers against both the Ryzen 7 7735U and the Ryzen 7 7840U in Geekbench 6/5.

In Geekbench 6, the Strix APU outran the Zen 3 and Zen 4 offerings by 51.8% and 24% respectively. This relative performance difference increased to 67.64% vs Ryzen 7 7735U and 33.4% vs Ryzen 7 7840U.

However, these multi-core numbers should be taken with some caution as the Strix APU was running at 54 W while the Ryzen 7 7735U and the Ryzen 7 7840U were at 28 W. So, it’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison.

Finally, when it comes to IPC improvement in Geekbench, the Ryzen AI 9 365 ranged from 15.28% to 17.34% in Geekbench 6 and 17.66% to 18.22% in Geekbench 5. These numbers are in line with AMD’s claim of an average IPC of 16% for Zen 5.

Long story short, the preliminary performance figures for the Ryzen AI 9 365 promise some solid improvements for the new APU. However, as explained by David Huang’s closing remarks, cutbacks like reduced frequency and smaller cache point to a much bigger performance difference between the desktop Ryzen 9000 and the mobile Ryzen AI Strix parts.

That said, we won’t be able to confirm David’s numbers and conclusions until we are able to put the AMD Strix-based notebooks through our rigorous review process. So, take the numbers with a grain of salt.

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