AMD to Use Motherboard BIOS Updates to Address Ryzen 8000G Desktop APU STAPM “Feature”

AMD introduced skin temperature-aware power management (STAPM) in 2014 for its mobile processors. This feature allows the on-die power management logic to consider the physical surface temperature of the laptop by reading off temperature probes mounted on the laptop chassis, in addition to the processor’s internal temperature, which is measured via on-chip thermal diodes. This guarantees that users’ laptops won’t become uncomfortable hot, and the processor may help lower temperatures. Since 2014, every desktop APU that AMD has released has been made from mobile processor silicon that has been modified for the desktop platform by simply turning off features and I/O interfaces that aren’t necessary for desktop use, like sensor suite, image processing, battery management, GPIO, and LPDDR memory interfaces. STAPM is one such functionality.

Gamers Nexus found that AMD neglected to correctly disable STAPM while building the Ryzen 8000G desktop APUs, which has affected the processor’s ability to increase both the CPU and the iGPU under high load, when temperature-triggered clock speed throttling is activated unintentionally. The Gamers Nexus discovery was verified by AMD, which also said that it will collaborate with its desktop motherboard partners to release a BIOS update that fixes the issue. GN found that there is a 16% performance difference between an 8000G CPU with STAPM enabled and one that has STAPM disabled (likely by an AMD CBS option). As a result, owners of 8000G processors might wish to check for firmware upgrades from their motherboard manufacturers.