Asus BIOS 327 is now locked and broken..

[JustSebT_T]

Here’s my feedback after a few weeks on BIOS 327 (ROG Strix G16 G615LR), and something is definitely off with CPU behaviour in Performance Mode.

On BIOS 325, under full GPU load, the CPU never dropped below ~2.7 GHz (typically hovering around 3.0–3.5 GHz), even with the 19–20W CPU limit in Performance Mode.

After updating to BIOS 327, the CPU can now drop as low as 2.0 GHz — and in some cases even ~1.8 GHz — during high FPS gameplay or GPU-heavy benchmark scenes. 

Temperatures are nowhere near thermal limits (usually below 70°C), so there is absolutely headroom for the CPU to clock higher.

The worst part is that ASUS clearly blocked BIOS rollback in 327 without informing users. That alone says a lot. 

 

Why this all matters (before anyone ask).. ?

When a game relies on the CPU to keep frametime consistent — especially at high framerates — forcing the CPU to downclock further than before introduces micro-stutter.

The only way to fix it right now is by switching to Turbo Mode (which is loud and unnecessary), or by reducing GPU wattage by ~10W so the CPU is allowed to boost again, which defeats the whole purpose of Performance Mode.

Performance Mode used to be a balanced profile — quiet but still responsive.

Now it behaves like an “eco mode”, even when there is temperature and power headroom for CPU boost.

The CPU can comfortably sit at 25–30W with the GPU fully powered, without increasing fan noise or temps beyond normal.

Please restore the old power policy or try to rebuild the Performance Mode entirely.. 

[tanqueta]

Hello, in same laptop here. In my experience best is to set Turbo mode, also in bios enable Undervolting/Overclocking, and after that install Intel Extreme Tunning Utility and use it in compact mode, set undervolting to -0.30 and Perfomance cores max ratio to 46.
You will have great gaming experience at low temps. Also some games works a lot smoother when you disable E cores. Like Fifa25, hunt showdown and others. But a restart is required each time you want to disable/enable the e cores.

[JustSebT_T]

The thing with Turbo is that my laptop sounds like jet engine, and I can still hear it trough my headphones with ANC. 

Before the bios update, everything was fine. 

I have -30mV as well, and I don't wanna mess around CPU ratio or anything, just undervolting, and is still doing a great job even though is quite an "Eco" undervolting I would say.. 

Another aspect is that with Armory Crate CPU for some reason don't going below 2.7ghz at performance mode, like it was with G-Helper, before I discovered that selecting the 4th Windows power mode (inside the G-Helper), "High Performance Plan", instead of leaving it at Balanced it High Performance, it enables the same behaviour as AC. But like I said, before 327 everything was fine. 

And about disabling E-Cores, I didn't encounter any significant impact with them turned On in games, because Win 11, especially 25H2, seems to improve task scheduler, and as long as the game doesn't utilize the e-cores they are just parked off or used for background tasks, to free up the P-cores while gaming. 

Also with E-cores disabled, Cinebench going all the way down from 39k to 11k.. I had 11-12k with my old Legion with Ryzen 7 5800h.. 

I know benchmark doesn't reflect the gaming performance, but if CPU is loosing soo much performance by just disabling E-Cores, it has to be impactful on gaming somehow. Besides, with this new generation, those new e-cores also are more powerful than previous generations such as 13/14th gen. 

One more think, What's stopping Asus from allow the CPU 5W more on Performance mode, while keeping the GPU at its full potential? It will impact CPU temps only marginally, but 5W more when 20W is the limit, it makes actually a huge difference.