Processors Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 366 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for processors. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

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.

Earlier this month at CES, Intel announced the 35 and 65 Watt Raptor Lake processors alongside the 13th Gen Core Mobile CPUs. Those new Raptor Lake desktop CPUs are now available from multiple Internet retailers and the mid-range Core i5 13400 recently arrived at Phoronix to put it through its paces under Linux.

One of the most exciting features of Intel's 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors is the introduction of Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX). The Intel AMX ISA extensions are intended for speeding-up AI and machine learning related workloads. In this article is a look at the AMX performance on the Xeon Platinum 8490H processors on/off for machine learning performance.

With Intel's 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processors that launched this week, Intel is betting heavily on the integrated accelerators for offering them an advantage over competitors for modern hyperscaler tasks and other workloads able to take advantage of the In-Memory Analytics Accelerator (IAA), Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), QuickAssist Technology (QAT), and the Dynamic Load Balancer (DLB). But what does the software landscape currently look like and what's needed to actually make use of these accelerators under Linux? Here is a brief how-to guide / overview for making use of the accelerators on your Linux server.

Now that the 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" and Xeon CPU Max Series overview is out of the way, you are probably very eager to see some independent performance benchmarks of the much anticipated Sapphire Rapids CPUs that are going up against AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" processors for 2023... For kicking off our Sapphire Rapids benchmarking, first up is a look at the Xeon Platinum 8490H performance under Linux as the flagship SKU.

Intel has announced the 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" CPUs today along with the Xeon CPU Max Series (Sapphire Rapids HBM) and Data Center GPU Max Series (Ponte Vecchio). Here is an overview of today's announcements prior to getting to some initial Sapphire Rapids Linux benchmarks on Phoronix.

Last week at the AMD CES 2023 keynote hosted by Lisa Su, new 65 Watt Ryzen 7000 series processors were announced. These more affordable Zen 4 processors are going retail this week and today marks the embargo lift. Up on the Linux testing block are the Ryzen 5 7600, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 9 7900 processors.

Intel is using the CES 2023 to announce their 13th Gen Intel Core mobile H/P/U-series processors, additional 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop CPUs for the 35 and 65 Watt tiers, and new Intel Processor (formerly Celeron) and Core i3 N-series processors.

One of the security improvements made by AMD with their 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" processors is upping their Secure Memory Encryption (SME) support from 128-bit to now 256-bit AES-XTS. AMD Secure Memory Encryption can be used for helping thwart attacks on the main system memory, but at what performance cost? In this article is an initial look at the AMD EPYC Genoa performance with AMD SME enabled/disabled.

With the great AMD 4th Gen EPYC Linux performance showing significant generational uplift and dominating against the current Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" competition, it's a combination of the twelve channels of DDR5 system memory support, up to 96 cores per socket, introduction of AVX-512, and other Zen 4 micro-architectural improvements. As follow-up testing articles to all of the Genoa data delivered thus far, over the weeks ahead I have additional benchmark results to share looking more closely at these different areas of improvement for AMD 4th Gen EPYC. In today's article is a look at the EPYC 9654 2P performance with AVX-512 on/off while also looking at the CPU power consumption impact and the affect on CPU clock frequencies and thermals.

The AMD EPYC 4th Gen "Genoa" processor performance has been outright phenomenal. These new AMD server processors have shown stunnning performance with up to 96 cores per socket and beyond the increased core count is now up to 12 channels of DDR5-4800 memory and most significantly in the HPC space is the introduction of AVX-512 support with Zen 4. Even the 32-core high frequency Genoa performance has been dominating against Intel's current Xeon Scalable competition. While AMD EPYC Genoa brings very impressive gains generation-over-generation and against the current Xeon Ice Lake CPUs, curiosity got the best of me for seeing how the new AMD EPYC CPUs compare to AMD's original EPYC 1st Gen "Naples" flagship - the EPYC 7601 2P. Here are Genoa benchmarks showing how far the AMD server/HPC CPU performance has evolved over the past five years since Naples.

Last week for the AMD EPYC 4th Gen "Genoa" launch day I published initial AMD EPYC 9554 and EPYC 9654 Linux benchmarks as part of my review. Those 64-core and 96-core Zen 4 processors performed phenomenally with Genoa having AVX-512, twelve channels of DDR5-4800 system memory support, higher TDP allowance, and other improvements over prior Milan(X) server processors. The other SKU that AMD sent over for review is the EPYC 9374F as their new 32-core high frequency part. For less than $5k, the EPYC 9374F is a high frequency Zen 4 32-core part with a 320 Watt TDP. Today's benchmarks are looking at the EPYC 9374F against the EPYC 9554/9654 and various other AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon Scalable processors under Linux.

After showcasing the AMD EPYC 9004 "Genoa" series and geeking out over AMD's reference platform running the Linux-powered open-source OpenBMC, it's time to move on to benchmarking. For evaluating the EPYC Genoa performance under Linux, AMD kindly provided review samples of the EPYC 9654 flagship 96-core processor, the EPYC 9554 64-core processor, and the EPYC 9374F 32-core high frequency CPU. In today's benchmark review I am looking at the EPYC 9554/9654 CPUs while the EPYC 9374F will be featured in its own review in the coming days on Phoronix.

Following September's successful launch of the AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors, today AMD is lifting the embargo on their EPYC 9004 series "Genoa" server processors. EPYC Genoa takes AMD server processors to the new SP5 socket, up to 96 cores / 192 threads per socket, AVX-512 with Zen 4, twelve channels of DDR5 system memory, and much more -- all combined it puts AMD and the industry at new levels of HPC performance. I've been benchmarking the AMD EPYC Genoa processors the past few weeks to astounding success. This article is looking more at the feature set and platform for Genoa while separately are my initial AMD EPYC 9554 / EPYC 9654 Linux review and benchmarks.

With SC2022 kicking off next week and AMD set to unveil their next-generation server processors tomorrow, Intel is using today to announce the Xeon Max Series and the Data Center GPU Max Series.

While initially leary of AMD Zen 4's "double pumped" approach for supporting AVX-512 using a 256-bit data path, it's proven to be very efficient for performance and yield great results without negative clock impairments or wreaking havoc on the power consumption. Back in September I delivered a detailed AVX-512 performance analysis on the Ryzen 9 7950X while in this article is a detailed benchmark look at the Core i9 11900K against the Ryzen 7 7700X. The Core i9 11900K being the currently last Intel desktop CPU officially supporting AVX-512 while the Ryzen 7 7700X was used for matching the core/thread count of that Rocket Lake processor for this AVX-512 on/off comparison.

Last week I looked at the Intel Core i9 13900K performance under Linux while today the focus is on the Core i5 13600K. The Core i5 13600K is a 14-core / 20-thread processor (6 P cores + 8 E cores), up from 6 P cores + 4 E cores with the prior generation Core i5 12600K. The Core i5 13600K has a recommended customer price of $319~329, which is indeed being honored among Internet retailers and with robust availability. Here is an initial look at how the Core i5 13600K "Raptor Lake" is running under Ubuntu Linux.

Last week Intel began shipping their 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors. As noted in that launch-day article last week, unfortunately I wasn't able to deliver my usual Linux performance review in time due to hitting some DDR5 issues with my test platform, but those have now been resolved with a new Z790 motherboard. So as the first of my Raptor Lake Linux benchmarks, here is a look at how the top-end Core i9 13900K performs against the AMD Ryzen 7000 series on Ubuntu Linux along with the older Intel/AMD processors.

Last month Intel announced 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors while today these processors officially go on sale. Today also marks the review embargo lift with Intel having provided Phoronix with the new Core i5 13600K and i9 13900K processors for Linux testing.

At the end of September when the review embargo lifted I looked at the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X for our launch-day Linux testing and that was then followed by the Ryzen 7 7700X Linux review. Since then I received the fourth and final Ryzen 7000 series desktop processor currently available: the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X. The Ryzen 5 7600X is currently AMD's most affordable Zen 4 processor at $299 USD and provides six cores / 12 threads and a boost clock up to 5.3GHz.

Earlier this week I published my AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 9 7950X Linux review as well as an extensive Zen 4 AVX-512 analysis and Linux gaming performance tests. Since then I have received the Ryzen 7 7700X from AMD for Linux testing and out today are those initial Linux benchmarks. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is available in-stock at $399 USD from Internet retailers and is an 8-core / 16-thread processor with a maximum boost clock speed of 5.4GHz.

Earlier this month I revisited the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Linux performance for looking at the effectiveness of the AMD 3D V-Cache under Linux when now using the very latest Linux kernel along with other new/updated benchmarks of the past several months. While already being very impressed by the performance of AMD EPYC Milan-X since those 3D V-Cache server CPUs launched earlier this year, here is a fresh round of Linux benchmarks looking at the EPYC 7763 vs. 7773X performance when running on a development snapshot of Ubuntu 22.10 paired with the Linux 6.0 development kernel and other newer software packages for a very up-to-date look at the performance potential on the server side.

The review embargo just lifted for the AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors ahead of their retail availability this week. As such there are a few Phoronix articles today looking at these Zen 4 processors under Linux and many benchmarks whole several more follow-up articles will be coming over the weeks ahead. For the launch-day review I have the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X processors. Let's take a look at the significant performance improvements to find with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 series under Linux.

While much of AMD's briefings for the Ryzen 7000 desktop series were focused on gaming and other consumer workloads, one of the most exciting aspects for me with the Ryzen 7000 series is AMD now supporting AVX-512. But rather going for a 512-bit FPU data path and the possibility of reduced clock frequencies and power/thermal concerns, they employed a 256-bit "double pumping" strategy. When getting the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in the lab, exploring the AMD Zen 4 AVX-512 performance was one of the areas I was most excited to evaluate. From the benchmarks about to be shown, AMD's initial AVX-512 implementation is promising and has me all the more excited for finding it on AMD EPYC "Genoa" processors.

Over the summer Google announced Tau T2A as the first Google Cloud Compute Engine VM to run on Arm. The T2A series is powered by Ampere Altra processors and complement the Tau T2D series powered by AMD EPYC 7003 "Milan" processors that launched last year. I have been trying out the Tau T2A series for the past several weeks and have some initial benchmarks to share today for showing how the Ampere Altra Arm VMs can perform against the existing T2D series.

Along with the fresh look at the Intel Core i9 12900K vs. AMD Ryzen 9 5950X on Linux using the latest development kernel and other bleeding-edge software packages, today's article is a fresh look at how the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 3D V-Cache is performing relative to the Ryzen 7 5800X.

Ahead of Intel Raptor Lake and AMD Zen 4, it's a lot of fresh CPU re-testing at Phoronix under Linux with the bleeding-edge software stack of the latest Linux kernel as well as many new/updated benchmarks, the latest motherboard BIOSes, and more. As over the past year there has been a lot of work by Intel open-source engineers around better tuning the Linux kernel for their hybrid architecture, here are some fresh side-by-side benchmarks of the Intel Core i9 12900K against the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X.

AMD CEO Lisa Su today formally introduced their Ryzen 7000 series desktop processors built atop their Zen 4 architecture.

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.

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).