AMD EPYC Is Running Well On Linux 4.15

Of the many changes coming for Linux 4.15, as detailed this weekend Radeon GPU and AMD CPU customers have a lot to be thankful for with this new kernel update currently in development. Here are some initial benchmarks of the Linux 4.15 development kernel using an AMD EPYC 7601 32-core / 64-thread setup.

When it comes to EPYC in Linux 4.15, the kernel side-bits have landed for Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV), CPU temperature monitoring support now working, and improved NUMA node balancing.

With the AMD-specific improvements as well as general enhancements that have landed so far during the Linux 4.15 kernel, the AMD EPYC 7601 is working out well so far on the Tyan 2U EPYC test server.

I ran some quick comparison tests today between Linux 4.14 stable and the current Linux 4.15 Git code...





There are some minor to modest performance improvements to note with 4.15 on this AMD server.

More results via this OpenBenchmarking.org result file.

The AMD EPYC CPU temperature monitoring is also working with Linux 4.15 thanks to the Family 17h support added to the k10temp kernel driver.

The first release candidate of Linux 4.15 should be out next weekend while the stable Linux 4.15 should be out around mid-January and is the kernel slated for use in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Stay tuned for more AMD EPYC Linux benchmarks and 4.15 kernel tests in general at Phoronix.