Processors Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 392 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for processors. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

Last November AMD introduced the first of the 4th Gen EPYC series with the EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors and that was then complemented earlier this year by the July launch of the Genoa-X processors for sporting AMD 3D V-Cache to help technical computing workloads and as well launching Bergamo for the Zen 4C based processor designs that allow up to 128 cores / 256 threads per socket. While AMD has a very robust portfolio for the high-end server space with 4th Gen EPYC, today AMD is introducing the EPYC 8004 "Siena" processors for "intelligent edge" servers. Siena is a step below Genoa but still very capable offering and coming in at a lower price point while being geared more for maximizing power efficiency and opening up EPYC to more deployments outside of the data center.

While this summer has been a busy season of benchmarking with the new AMD EPYC Bergamo processors providing up to 128-cores / 256-threads per socket and the new EPYC Genoa-X parts providing up to 1.1GB of L3 cache with 3D V-Cache to provide for excellent HPC performance, not everyone needs such levels of performance nor having the budget for such platforms. It's always fun talking about the high-end server platforms, but at the opposite end AMD and their platform partners have been rolling out an equally interesting assortment of AMD Ryzen 7000 series based server products. With the Ryzen 9 7950X/7950X3D providing up to 16-cores / 32-threads, a growing number of Ryzen server motherboards supporting DDR5 ECC UDIMM, and a number of innovative Ryzen server platforms coming to market, it's an interesting time to be after a budget-friendly server platform or other robust rackmount systems where looking for power efficient 16 cores or less configurations.

For HotChips 2023, Intel has made some new disclosures around Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest.

While back in November was when AWS originally announced new EC2 instances powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC "Genoa" processors, only this week did they bring their M7a general purpose instances to a general availability state where anyone can access them. Being very impressed with 4th Gen EPYC bare metal as well as with Azure's HPC cloud, I fired up some benchmarks of the new Genoa-powered EC2 M7a instance compared to the new M7i instances powered by Intel Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" as well as showing how the competition is to Amazon's in-house Graviton ARM-based server processors.

The past several weeks at Phoronix has been very exciting with benchmarking AMD EPYC Genoa-X processors (along with Bergamo) and the incredible uplift delivered by these latest AMD server processors. But for those not yet having the opportunity to test the new EPYC Genoa-X processors locally, those wishing to evaluate the Genoa-X capabilities in the public cloud prior to making an investment in these high-end server processors with 3D V-Cache, or those simply preferring the ease of cloud infrastructure, Azure's new HBv4 series provide an excellent route for leveraging AMD Genoa-X compute capabilities in the cloud. Here are benchmarks of the new Azure HBv4 powered by EPYC Genoa-X compared to prior Azure HPC VMs. The Azure HBv4 performance is outstanding with incredible generational uplift and leading value among Microsoft's HPC-focused VMs.

The new AMD EPYC Bergamo and Genoa-X processors have been very fascinating in the lab from the performance angle and the many different features and knobs provided by these new high-end server processors focused on dense cloud and energy-efficient deployments and HPC/AI, respectively. With Bergamo the flagship AMD EPYC 9754 provides 128 cores with SMT and the Zen 4C cores still boast AVX-512. Another nifty aspect on this high core count CPU catering to cloud service providers is the adjustable TDP from 320 to Watts. Prior Phoronix benchmarks have looked at the default 360 Watt performance and the 400W at the high-end with power determinism mode while today's article is looking at the efficiency gains made possible by pulling back to a 320W cTDP.

While this week was the surprise announcement of Intel AVX10 and with that taking the super-set of AVX-512 to both E and P core processors in the future, for next year's Xeon "Sierra Forest" server processors at up to 144 cores, it appears they will lack AVX-512/AVX10. Intel's AVX10 announcement noted initial support with Granite Rapids processors that will debut next year but no mention of the E-core-only Sierra Forest. With the AVX10 only coming to P/E core client processors after Granite Rapids, it would appear the high density Sierra Forest generation will miss out on AVX10/AVX-512 and not appear until Clearwater Forest. Meanwhile with the 128-core AMD EPYC "Bergamo" processors now shipping, there is AVX-512 with the Zen 4C cores. Here are some benchmarks looking at the AVX-512 impact for Bergamo.

Last week in the AMD EPYC 9684X review were many benchmarks looking at how this flagship Genoa-X processor compares to various AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors. The EPYC 9684X delivers terrific generational uplift compared to Milan-X, offers significant advantages over the EPYC 9004 Genoa processors thanks to the 1.1GB of L3 cache per CPU that proves very beneficial in HPC and AI workloads, and the 96-core / AVX-512 / 3D V-Cache combination far surpassed the Intel performance in the vast majority of benchmarks. As some follow-up benchmarks, today is looking precisely at the performance difference caused by the 3D V-Cache presence by looking at the EPYC 9684X performance when the 3D V-Cache feature was enabled and then the tests repeated when disabled.

While the AMD EPYC 9754 "Bergamo" processor is impressive for having 128 physical Zen 4C cores, it also has Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) to provide for 256 threads per socket. Meanwhile with Ampere Altra Max and AmpereOne there is no SMT and it's likely Intel's upcoming Sierra Forest will also lack SMT (Hyper Threading) given it's an E-core-only design. But that led to my curiosity over the SMT impact for Bergamo on power and performance when leveraging SMT for the 128-core flagship EPYC 9754. Today's Bergamo benchmarking is looking at SMT on and off for both 1P and 2P server configurations.

In addition to the review embargo lift today for Genoa-X with our AMD EPYC 9684X benchmarks, the lift is also today on the new AMD EPYC "Bergamo" processors for offering up to 128 cores / 256 threads per socket using the new Zen 4C core. In this article is an initial look at the performance provided by the AMD EPYC 9754 128-core processors.

Last year AMD launched Milan-X as their first server processors with 3D V-Cache. The performance uplift from the 768MB of L3 cache per socket was phenomenal, but now here we are today with the next-generation successor: Genoa-X. The flagship EPYC 9684X is the new leader for HPC and AI performance as in addition to a 1.1GB L3 cache it leverages AMD's modern Zen 4 micro-architecture with AVX-512, 12 channel DDR5 memory, and other improvements found with existing EPYC 9004 series processors to easily triumph as the new best CPU for high performance computing from CFD and FEA to dozens of other scientific workloads. Here are the first benchmarks of the AMD EPYC 9684X processors.

Similar to what I have shown with the Ryzen 9 7950X AVX-512 desktop performance and AMD EPYC 9004 series AVX-512 server performance, the new Ryzen 7040 series mobile processors are exhibiting great AVX-512 performance for laptops. In today's article is a look at the performance impact when toggling AVX-512 capabilities for a Ryzen 7 7840U "Phoenix" SoC compared to toggling AVX-512 with prior Intel Tiger Lake and Ice Lake laptops that offer AVX-512.

With the ASUS ROG Ally being the first device powered by AMD's new Z1 Extreme SoC with Zen 4 CPU cores and RDNA3 graphics, it's been very interesting to see its performance advantages over the Steam Deck. But beyond its potential for use in gaming handhelds, it's quite fascinating to see how powerful the Z1 Extreme actually is when removing power restrictions on this SoC. In this article is a wide range of CPU benchmarks putting the Z1 Extreme up against the new Ryzen 7 7840U laptop SoC as well as prior generation Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U for reference. When adjusting the ACPI Platform Profile configuration, the Ryzen Z1 Extreme proves to be very robust from a low-power SoC delivering good battery performance up through pulling 50+ Watts while outperforming the 7840U.

The Intel Xeon Max 9480 flagship Sapphire Rapids CPU with HBM2e memory tops out at 56 cores / 112 threads, so how can that compete with the latest AMD EPYC processors hitting 96 cores for Genoa (or 120 cores with the forthcoming Bergamo)? Besides the on-package HBM2e that is unique to the Xeon Max family, the other ace that Xeon Max holds with the rest of the Sapphire Rapids line-up is support for the Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX). In today's benchmarks of the Intel Xeon Max performance is precisely showing the impact of how HBM2e and AMX in order to compete -- and outperform -- AMD's EPYC 9554 and 9654 processors in AI workloads when effectively leveraging AMX and the onboard HBM2e memory.

For weeks and weeks I've been eager to see how well the new AMD Zen 4 based "Phoenix" laptop SoCs function and perform under Linux. Recently I finally found an interesting AMD Ryzen 7 7840U laptop to test and today have some initial Linux benchmarks to share from this Acer Swift Edge 16 laptop with Ryzen 7 7840U SoC and a 3.2K 120Hz OLED display, among other interesting specs.

As part of our Linux-focused look at the ASUS ROG Ally handheld, last week I provided a number of Windows 11 vs. Linux gaming performance on this gaming handheld with RDNA3 graphics found on the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC. Today's testing is not about the gaming but looking more at the general CPU performance for this Zen 4 powered SoC.

Today is a very fun and interesting round of benchmarking... Recently Supermicro sent over their Hyper SuperServer SYS-221H-TNR and Intel supplied the Xeon Max 9468 and Xeon Max 9480 for finally being able to benchmark Xeon Max processors, the Sapphire Rapids parts featuring 64GB of HBM2e memory. For this initial benchmarking article is a look at the Xeon Max 9468/9480 dual socket performance when running in HBM-only mode and HBM-caching mode for showing some of the workloads where Xeon Max can deliver significant uplift compared to when running in flat (1LM) mode without assigning anything to the HBM memory for seeing the impact when the specialized memory goes unused.

AMD is kicking off what is going to be an exciting day with announcing the Ryzen PRO 7000 series processors for upcoming laptops and desktops.

While AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" and Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors launched a few months ago, for those not yet able to obtain the new processors/platforms, prefer waiting for DDR5 memory prices to recede further, don't necessarily need the latest bells and whistles found with these new server processors, or just looking to maximize value, 3rd Gen AMD EPYC Milan and Intel Xeon Scalable Ice Lake processors are readily available and still seeing plenty of new deployments in data centers throughout the world. In this article is a fresh look at the AMD Milan vs. Intel Ice Lake server performance, power efficiency, and performance-per-dollar across a range of processors.

Intel is using ISC2023 this week in Hamburg, Germany to provide an update on its AI-accelerated HPC efforts. This includes reaffirming their upcoming data center product roadmap, reiterating their great software efforts, and also announcing full Aurora supercomputer specifications.

Ampere Computing announced this morning that their AmpereOne family of processors have entered production and provided additional details on these in-house designed Arm server processors.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D processors went on sale at the end of February as the first Zen 4 3D V-Cache processors, today marks the availability of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor. I've recently been putting the 7800X3D through its paces under Linux and have a plethora of benchmark data to share for launch day.

While waiting for AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" instances to become available via the major public cloud providers, I was curious to see how existing AMD EPYC Milan instances compare to Intel's new Sapphire Rapids instances in public preview on Google Cloud. While expecting some friendly competition, at the same vCPU size EPYC Milan was managing to deliver not only better performance-per-dollar but also even better raw performance in numerous workloads against the Google Cloud C3 Sapphire Rapids.

Back in October Google announced their Compute Engine C3 instances in private preview that featured 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors as well as making use of Google's custom Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU). Since then, back in January, was the big Sapphire Rapids launch with the likes of the Xeon Platinum 8490H being released. Last month meanwhile Google promoted the C3 VMs to public preview state. The Sapphire Rapids C3 VMs remain in "public preview" from Google Cloud during which time there are no charges involved for the CPU costs. For those wondering about the core-for-core performance of Sapphire Rapids in Google Cloud, here are my initial benchmarks of the C3 series.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X3D are promoted as great "gaming processors", these new Zen 4 desktop CPUs with 3D V-Cache also have great capabilities for various technical computing workloads thanks to the hefty cache size. In prior articles I've looked at the Ryzen 9 7900X3D/7950X3D in around 400 workloads on Linux while in this article I am looking more closely at these technical computing areas where these AMD Zen 4 3D V-Cache processors show the most strength and value outside of gaming.

Following last week's review of the brand new AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and then moving on to looking at the Ryzen 9 7900X3D gaming performance, today's Linux hardware coverage on Phoronix is looking at the Ryzen 9 7900X3D Linux performance in other system/CPU workloads aside from gaming.

After earlier this week providing the initial Linux benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D across many Linux gaming tests as well as nearly 400 other tests, in today's article I am looking at the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D as the 12-core / 24-thread processor with the hefty 128MB L3 cache on this Zen 4 desktop processor. Due to having less time with the 7900X3D thus far, today's article is just getting things started in looking at the Linux gaming performance -- both native Linux games as well as many Windows games running on Linux thanks to Valve's wonderful Steam Play (Proton + DXVK / VKD3D-Proton) software.

Ahead of tomorrow's launch of the AMD Ryzen 7800X3D / 7900X3D / 7950X3D processors, today marks the embargo expiry on the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D 3D V-Cache processor. Today I can share with you the initial performance around the performance of this $699 USD processor that features a 144MB cache.

Today marks three years since AMD introduced the Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, the first HEDT chip sporting 64 cores / 128 threads. While based on Zen 2, the shear multi-threaded compute power of the Threadripper 3990X still bodes well today. Besides 64 cores / 128 threads still being a lot, Linux software improvements over the past three years have helped maintain the competitiveness of the Threadripper 3990X. In today's benchmarks are results from the System76 Thelio Major as tested back in 2020 based on Pop!_OS / Ubuntu 22.04 LTS compared to the very latest state today when running an Ubuntu 23.04 snapshot on the same system and using a Linux 6.2 Git kernel.

With last week's launch of Intel's 4th Gen Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids server processors, Intel heavily talked up the shiny new accelerators and the big performance potential of AMX, but not really showcased and only heard through the grapevine was the improved AVX-512 implementation found with these new processors. With Sapphire Rapids there is reduced penalties from engaging AVX-512 -- and for some AVX-512 instructions, no longer any measurable impact -- compared to prior generation Xeon processors. In this article is a look at the performance for a wide variety of workloads with AVX-512 on/off not just for Sapphire Rapids but also for prior generation Ice Lake as well as AMD's new EPYC 4th Gen "Genoa" processors where they have introduced AVX-512 for the first time.