Computers Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 240 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for computers. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

NVIDIA GH200 72 Core Grace CPU Performance vs. AMD Ryzen Threadripper Workstations
NVIDIA GH200 72 Core Grace CPU Performance vs. AMD Ryzen Threadripper Workstations

Earlier this month I posted some initial CPU benchmarks of the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper up against AMD EPYC Zen 4 and Intel Xeon Emerald Rapids processors. That was a very interesting battle and showed the interesting capabilities of the 72 Arm Neoverse-V2 cores. With this GPTshop.ai GH200 system actually being in workstation form, I also ran some additional benchmarks looking at the CPU capabilities of the GH200 compared to AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series workstations.

20 February 2024 - 29 Comments
AMD Announces Embedded+ Architecture For Ryzen Paired With Xilinx IP
AMD Announces Embedded+ Architecture For Ryzen Paired With Xilinx IP

With Ryzen AI found in the very newest Ryzen processors, AMD began making use of IP from their acquisition of Xilinx. Today though AMD is announcing their Embedded+ Architecture that is taking the marriage of AMD and Xilinx tech much further by combining the wares onto a single PCB for new embedded applications as an integrated compute platform.

6 February 2024 - 20 Comments
Framework Laptop 16 Delivers Great Linux Support & Performance, Excellent Customizability
Framework Laptop 16 Delivers Great Linux Support & Performance, Excellent Customizability

The review embargo has now expired on the Framework Laptop 16, the latest innovative and upgradeable laptop from this company that has made quite a name for itself with modular and user-upgradeable laptop designs for both AMD and Intel. The new Framework Laptop 16 offers even more customizability around the keyboard/touchpad and other options including over using a Radeon RX 7700S graphics module and more. Besides the immense customizability options and upgrades available with the Framework Laptop 16, the new model employs the AMD Ryzen 7040HS processor for even greater performance over the AMD Ryzen 7040U found with the latest Framework 13 model.

23 January 2024 - 56 Comments
AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS Linux Performance With The TUXEDO Pulse 14 Gen 3
AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS Linux Performance With The TUXEDO Pulse 14 Gen 3

When it comes to AMD Zen 4 laptop testing to date I've done a lot of testing with the Ryzen 7 7840U as well as the Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U which have proved to be very capable 8-core / 16-thread laptop processors with performant integrated graphics and running great on Linux -- besides the current lack of Ryzen AI. Recently TUXEDO Computer sent over their newly announced Pulse 14 Gen 3 Linux laptop featuring the Ryzen 7 7840HS part, which is the focus of today's testing.

19 January 2024 - 26 Comments
System76 Thelio Major Powered By AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 Series
System76 Thelio Major Powered By AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 Series

For those in the market for a high-end Linux workstation for carrying out a lot of code compilation, AI workloads, or other creator or HPC tasks, the new System76 Thelio Major goes on sale today and it's a real winner. I've been trying out the new System76 Thelio Major powered by the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7900 series processors and it delivers excellent Linux performance and all comes nicely working out-of-the-box with their Pop!_OS Linux distribution.

18 January 2024 - 31 Comments
Gigabyte G242-P36: A Great Ampere Altra Max Platform For AI/GPU Computing
Gigabyte G242-P36: A Great Ampere Altra Max Platform For AI/GPU Computing

The past two months I've been using the Gigabyte (Giga Computing) G242-P36 and it's been a refreshing delight for an ARM64 server platform running well with the mature Ampere Altra and Ampere Altra Max processors while boasting support for up to two GPUs and up to two DPUs or other PCIe adapters to make for a nice GPU/AI accelerated computing server.

17 January 2024 - 2 Comments
Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance On The Intel Core Ultra 7 Meteor Lake
Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance On The Intel Core Ultra 7 Meteor Lake

Following my Linux benchmarks of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor performance where it ended up being rather disappointing but then with finding great success with the integrated Arc Graphics on Meteor Lake, like I you may be left wondering how much of a role Linux is playing with these results compared to Windows... Well, this article will shed some light on that aspect with looking at the Microsoft Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux performance on the Acer Swift Go 14 Meteor Lake laptop.

21 December 2023 - 68 Comments
HP Z6 G5 A Makes For An Incredibly Powerful AMD Workstation For Creators & Developers
HP Z6 G5 A Makes For An Incredibly Powerful AMD Workstation For Creators & Developers

Since the release of the Threadripper 7000 series on 20 November I've carried out and published many benchmarks of these new HEDT/PRO CPUs including the flagship AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX featuring 96-cores / 192-threads. All of my Threadripper PRO 7995WX benchmarks have been carried out using an HP Z6 G5 A workstation and it's proven to be an outright beast for creators, software developers, and others needing immense multi-threaded capabilities at your finger tips. Here's more about my experience with this new high-end HP workstation.

12 December 2023 - 15 Comments
Framework 13 With AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes For A Great Linux Laptop
Framework 13 With AMD Ryzen 7040 Series Makes For A Great Linux Laptop

For those in the market for an AMD Ryzen 7040 series (Zen 4) laptop, the Framework 13 laptop is a great option for those wanting a Linux-friendly device and is a rare breed in being a completely upgradeable laptop similar to Framework's Intel laptop models. I've been testing out the Framework Laptop 13 the past month and after a BIOS update has been working out wonderfully on Linux.

15 November 2023 - 43 Comments
AMD Ryzen Lenovo Laptop Linux Performance For Zen 2 / Zen 3 / Zen 3+ / Zen 4
AMD Ryzen Lenovo Laptop Linux Performance For Zen 2 / Zen 3 / Zen 3+ / Zen 4

With recently picking up the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U and given the recent release of Fedora 39, I found it to be a nice time to provide a Lenovo ThinkPad retrospect of how the AMD Ryzen laptop Linux performance has evolved the past few generations. In today's article is a look at how the AMD Ryzen 7 mobile series laptop performance has evolved going back to Zen 2 for various ThinkPad models while all testing was carried out on the brand new Fedora Workstation 39 Linux release.

10 November 2023 - 18 Comments
Raspberry Pi 5 Benchmarks: Significantly Better Performance, Improved I/O
Raspberry Pi 5 Benchmarks: Significantly Better Performance, Improved I/O

After a difficult few years of global supply chain woes leading to limited available and heightened retail pricing on the Raspberry Pi single board computers, today there is finally an update to the family. Four years after the Raspberry Pi 4 shipped, today the Raspberry Pi 5 is launching with a much improved SoC leading to significant performance gains. Additional improvements with the Raspberry Pi 5 make this a very nice generational upgrade.

28 September 2023 - 132 Comments
Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 w/ AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U Running Nicely On Linux
Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 w/ AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U Running Nicely On Linux

The past few weeks I've been putting the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 4 AMD mobile workstation through its paces that is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U SoC. Besides uncovering one BIOS issue that is in the process of being resolved, this latest-generation AMD-powered laptop that features 64GB of LPDDR5X memory, 1TB NVMe SSD, and integrated Radeon graphics with 2.8K OLED display has been working out well on modern Linux distributions. Here's a look at this AMD Zen 4 laptop running on Linux and plenty of performance benchmarks for this laptop.

26 September 2023 - 49 Comments
StarFive VisionFive 2 Quad-Core RISC-V Performance Benchmarks
StarFive VisionFive 2 Quad-Core RISC-V Performance Benchmarks

SiFive's HiFive Unmatched development board was interesting when it began shipping in 2021 with 16GB of RAM and four U74-MC RISC-V cores along with one S7 core. But pricing was rather steep at $665 USD. Fast forward two years, the StarFive VisionFive 2 has begun to enjoy wide availability and for $100+ this RISC-V development board features a quad-core RISC-V processor via the StarFive JH7110 SoC with integrated GPU, up to 8GB of RAM, HDMI 2.0 output, dual Gigabit Ethernet, dual USB 3.0 ports, and more for around $100 USD. Here are some benchmarks of this most interesting RISC-V single board computer in the ~$100 space to be released yet.

16 August 2023 - 95 Comments
Intel DOWNFALL: New Vulnerability Affecting AVX2/AVX-512 With Big Performance Implications
Intel DOWNFALL: New Vulnerability Affecting AVX2/AVX-512 With Big Performance Implications

This Patch Tuesday brings a new and potentially painful processor speculative execution vulnerability... Downfall, or as Intel prefers to call it is GDS: Gather Data Sampling. GDS/Downfall affects the gather instruction with AVX2 and AVX-512 enabled processors. At least the latest-generation Intel CPUs are not affected but Tigerlake / Ice Lake back to Skylake is confirmed to be impacted. There is microcode mitigation available but it will be costly for AVX2/AVX-512 workloads with GATHER instructions in hot code-paths and thus widespread software exposure particularly for HPC and other compute-intensive workloads that have relied on AVX2/AVX-512 for better performance.

8 August 2023 - 40 Comments
Apple M2 On Linux Performance Against AMD Zen 4 Mobile SoCs
Apple M2 On Linux Performance Against AMD Zen 4 Mobile SoCs

The most common request from my recent ROG Ally benchmarking with the Ryzen Z1 SoC and also the Ryzen 7 7840U laptop SoC testing has been wanting to know how these Zen 4 mobile processors compete with Apple's M2 on Linux. Well, for those curious, here are some initial performance figures of the Apple M2 in a MacBook Air running Asahi Linux up against the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme and Ryzen 7 7840U SoCs on Linux.

21 July 2023 - 98 Comments
Steam Deck vs. ASUS ROG Ally Arch Linux Gaming Performance
Steam Deck vs. ASUS ROG Ally Arch Linux Gaming Performance

With the ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld that began shipping last month I've so far looked at the Linux support for this device as well as looking at the Windows 11 vs. Linux gaming performance as well as the Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU performance. What many Phoronix readers have been most interested in seeing though are the side-by-side benchmarks for Valve's Steam Deck up against the ASUS ROG Ally. Today's benchmarks provide just that comparison plus some CPU benchmarks too.

5 July 2023 - 39 Comments
Running Linux On The ASUS ROG Ally Gaming Handheld
Running Linux On The ASUS ROG Ally Gaming Handheld

Following last month's announcement, this week marks the start of the ASUS ROG Ally shipping as the most compelling alternative to date for Valve's Steam Deck. The ASUS ROG Ally features the new AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme CPU that's interesting in its own right for being based on Zen 4 and RDNA3 integrated graphics. There will be many benchmark articles on Phoronix over the days ahead looking both at the ASUS ROG Ally itself for Linux gaming/performance as well as focusing more generally on the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. In today's article is a few words to get started on the Linux support.

15 June 2023 - 45 Comments
Orange Pi 5 Is A Great & Very Fast Alternative To The Raspberry Pi 4
Orange Pi 5 Is A Great & Very Fast Alternative To The Raspberry Pi 4

With an 8-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC, the Orange Pi 5 is leaps and bounds faster than the aging Raspberry Pi 4. With up to 32GB of RAM, the Orange Pi 5 is also capable of serving for a more diverse user-base and even has enough potential for assembling a budget Arm Linux developer desktop. I've been testing out the Orange Pi 5 the past few weeks and it's quite fast and nice for its low price point.

23 March 2023 - 100 Comments
Apple M2 vs. AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U Performance In Nearly 200 Benchmarks
Apple M2 vs. AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U Performance In Nearly 200 Benchmarks

Last week I published initial Apple M2 vs. AMD Rembrandt vs. Intel Alder Lake Linux benchmarks using Asahi Linux and Arch Linux across the board. For ending out this week, here is a follow-up article looking more closely at the Apple M2 in the MacBook Air against the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" within the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen3. This time around are also results from performance tweaks to each laptop for the CPUFreq governor and platform profile.

19 August 2022 - 144 Comments
Apple M2 vs. AMD Rembrandt vs. Intel Alder Lake Linux Benchmarks
Apple M2 vs. AMD Rembrandt vs. Intel Alder Lake Linux Benchmarks

Given the significant interest from Phoronix readers about how well Apple M2 performs on Linux, especially after it was noted Linus Torvalds using an Apple MacBook Air M2, here are the first of many benchmark articles to come looking at how well Apple's M2 performs under Linux against Intel/AMD x86_64 competition. The new Apple MacBook Air with M2 was benchmarked for this article against the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" Zen 3+, Intel Core i7 1280P "Alder Lake P", an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX "Cezanne H", and also for reference an Apple Mac Mini M1 model. All of these laptops were tested under Arch Linux (x86_64) and the Arch-based Asahi Linux (M1/M2).

9 August 2022 - 211 Comments
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" Linux Benchmarks
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" Linux Benchmarks

I've begun testing the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U "Rembrandt" SoC under Linux and have some preliminary benchmarks of this Zen 3+ chip up against a variety of Intel and AMD notebooks on hand. Here is the first of several articles looking at the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U Linux performance using a Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen3.

21 July 2022 - 38 Comments
Booting Linux On A Modern AMD Ryzen 6000 Series Laptop / ThinkPad X13 Gen3
Booting Linux On A Modern AMD Ryzen 6000 Series Laptop / ThinkPad X13 Gen3

Earlier this week Linux security researcher Matthew Garrett shared that Lenovo's newer AMD Rembrandt laptops with Microsoft's Pluton security co-processor would not boot Linux by default. The issue stems from the third-party UEFI certificate not being enabled by default and it turns out is something Microsoft is seemingly now enforcing. Fortunately, I had a Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen3 with Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U on the way and so was now able to test this experience under Linux.

15 July 2022 - 88 Comments
Linux 5.19 Looking Real Good On The HP Dev One, XanMod + Liquorix Also Tested
Linux 5.19 Looking Real Good On The HP Dev One, XanMod + Liquorix Also Tested

With the very popular HP Dev One that is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO SoC and running Pop!_OS, a number of Phoronix readers inquired about seeing benchmarks of some of the alternative kernel flavors on the device. So here is a look at the stock Linux 5.17 kernel up against the Linux 5.18 and 5.19 (Git) kernels and then Liquorix and XanMod tossed in as alternative flavors running on the Pop!_OS 22.04 installation.

11 July 2022 - 18 Comments
HP Dev One - A Great, Well Engineered AMD Ryzen Linux Laptop
HP Dev One - A Great, Well Engineered AMD Ryzen Linux Laptop

Earlier this month marked the launch of the HP Dev One as an interesting collaboration between HP and System76 for a laptop optimized for Linux developers and running System76's Ubuntu-based Pop!_OS operating system. It's a very interesting laptop and well thought out for Linux use with an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U SoC and integrated Radeon graphics for satisfying the preferences of many Linux developers preferring a fully open-source driver stack. Thanks to the large scale manufacturing of HP, it's also a competitively-priced Linux laptop compared to many of the Linux laptops from smaller vendors that are based on Clevo or other white box laptop designs.

13 June 2022 - 94 Comments
TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 - AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Powered, Linux Laptop
TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 - AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Powered, Linux Laptop

Bavarian PC vendor TUXEDO Computers that specializes in various Linux pre-loaded notebooks and desktop computers recently launched their Aura 15 Gen2 laptop focused on being an "affordable business allrounder" and powered by AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors with integrated Vega graphics to make for a nice open-source driver experience. TUXEDO sent over the Aura 15 Gen2 for a round of testing and here's a look at this Ubuntu Linux laptop's performance and capabilities.

25 May 2022 - 17 Comments
For Linux Enthusiasts Especially, The Steam Deck Is An Incredible & Fun Device
For Linux Enthusiasts Especially, The Steam Deck Is An Incredible & Fun Device

Over the past nearly 18 years of running Phoronix, I have come across many interesting Linux-based products from Linux embedded in motherboards for instant-on use to the BlackDog USB port pen drive Linux servers to solar-powered super-computers in trash cans. The most fun and promising Linux-powered gaming device for the masses though is launching today: Valve's Steam Deck. I've been fortunate to be testing out this Arch Linux derived handheld game console the past month and it has been working out very well -- both as a portable Steam gaming device but making it even more compelling from the Linux enthusiast angle is its "developer mode" that effectively turns it into a general Linux handheld and also being free to load your own Linux distribution of choice.

25 February 2022 - 64 Comments

240 computers articles published on Phoronix.