Intel PTC, Intel EAS & AMD Requested CPU Min Freq Features Merged For Linux 6.16
The many power management subsystem updates and related changes have been merged for the in-development Linux 6.16 kernel.
With the Intel updates for Linux 6.16 power management is now support for Energy Aware Scheduling (EAS) within the Intel P-State driver for hybrid platforms without SMT, for current-generation Lunar Lake and next-gen Panther Lake platforms. This should lead to improvements in energy efficiency but could lead to lower performance if more work is tasked to the lower-power E cores. I'll be running some Intel EAS benchmarks on my side shortly.
On the AMD side of the power management pull is support for the "Requested CPU Minimum Frequency" BIOS option is now honored by the AMD P-State driver. Zen 4 and newer AMD EPYC systems have this BIOS option to let the user set an initial lower CPU frequency limit that can be overrode at run-time via the "scaling_min_freq" sysfs file.
The power management pull request also provides support for autonomous CPU performance state selection within the CPPC CPUFreq driver. Plus a variety of other updates.
More details on the power management changes for Linux 6.16 via this pull.
Rafael Wysocki of Intel also sent out the ACPI updates for Linux 6.16 that include the ACPICA 20241212 and 20250404 updates. This adds support for the new MRRM / ERDT / RIMT tables while also extending support for the RAS2 and DMAR tables.
The third power-related pull for the week were the thermal control updates. New there is adding Intel Platform Temperature Control Interface support for the in340x driver. Intel Platform Temperature Control Interface is for dealing with skin and board temperatures and adjusting the SoC performance as needed if PTC thresholds are exceeded.
With the Intel updates for Linux 6.16 power management is now support for Energy Aware Scheduling (EAS) within the Intel P-State driver for hybrid platforms without SMT, for current-generation Lunar Lake and next-gen Panther Lake platforms. This should lead to improvements in energy efficiency but could lead to lower performance if more work is tasked to the lower-power E cores. I'll be running some Intel EAS benchmarks on my side shortly.
👁 Intel and AMD laptops with Linux
On the AMD side of the power management pull is support for the "Requested CPU Minimum Frequency" BIOS option is now honored by the AMD P-State driver. Zen 4 and newer AMD EPYC systems have this BIOS option to let the user set an initial lower CPU frequency limit that can be overrode at run-time via the "scaling_min_freq" sysfs file.
The power management pull request also provides support for autonomous CPU performance state selection within the CPPC CPUFreq driver. Plus a variety of other updates.
More details on the power management changes for Linux 6.16 via this pull.
Rafael Wysocki of Intel also sent out the ACPI updates for Linux 6.16 that include the ACPICA 20241212 and 20250404 updates. This adds support for the new MRRM / ERDT / RIMT tables while also extending support for the RAS2 and DMAR tables.
The third power-related pull for the week were the thermal control updates. New there is adding Intel Platform Temperature Control Interface support for the in340x driver. Intel Platform Temperature Control Interface is for dealing with skin and board temperatures and adjusting the SoC performance as needed if PTC thresholds are exceeded.