Hi @RODiZRiPPIN welcome to this free user-to-user Alienware laptop discussion forum. 

AMD SmartShift Max Dynamically shifts power between processors in your laptop to help give extra performance whether gaming or creating content. When on ac adapter (charger) power, it can use extra power from the battery to improve demanding graphic performance. When on battery only power, the graphic performance will be limited. Alienware m17 R5 Amplified Performance | AMD.  

I am aware of the smart shift unfortunately it's not a graphics performance issue. It's the CPU itself clocking down to 400mhz-1.2ghz causing stuttering, audio cracks and glitches and very slow performance

Hi @RODiZRiPPIN thank you for the clarification. 

Support for Alienware m17 R5 AMD Diagnostics Custom Component Test includes CPU Test option. Is this a good test option?

Hello,

I am having the same issue with my Alienware m17 r5. When plugged in the system reaches maximum performance. On battery, however, the performance is extremely low. 

My Alienware has a similar performance with @RODiZRiPPIN's system at only 1GHz.
When I perform a stress test on all cores (CPU-Z), AMD Adrenaline software shows the following power consumption for Ryzen 9 6900HX:

- Plugged-in: 70-80 W (~4.5-4.6 Ghz all cores)
- On Battery: 6-7 W (~ 1Ghz all cores)

The performance difference is significant, and it makes the laptop unusable while on battery. This does not seem to be a hardware problem, as all ePSA tests pass successfully. Furthermore, I have had two different motherboards on my system (the first one was faulty and was replaced by Dell), and in both cases, the performance was the same while on battery.

This could be a BIOS problem/design to presumably improve battery life. I would appreciate it if you could confirm or even better provide a solution.