AMD Ryzen 7 1800X vs. Intel Core i7 7700K Linux Gaming Performance

For those craving some Linux gaming benchmarks from the newly-released AMD Ryzen 7 1800X processor, here are some test results. In this initial comparison are benchmarks of the Ryzen 7 1800K to Core i7 7700K when running these processors at stock speeds while using a Radeon R9 Fury graphics card paired with AMDGPU+RadeonSI for the Linux graphics driver stack.

By now you have probably checked out the AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Linux benchmarks for all the CPU heavy tests I was able to complete since receiving this processor yesterday. In this article is the first of several articles looking at the AMD Linux gaming performance of Ryzen.

As a reminder, the Ryzen 7 1800X has a 3.6GHz base clock frequency, 4.0GHz turbo frequency, and is eight cores with 16 threads via SMT. This newly-launched CPU retails for $499 USD. The Core i7 7700K Kabylake carries a $340 to $350 price tag and has a 4.2GHz base frequency with 4.5GHz turbo frequency for its four cores plus Hyper Threading.

For this initial Core i7 vs. Ryzen 7 comparison each system was equipped with 16GB of DDR4 system memory, 256GB NVMe SSD, and using a Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury graphics card. The same software stack was running on each system comprised of an Ubuntu 17.04 development snapshot with the Linux 4.10 kernel and manually upgrading to the Mesa 17.0.0 release.

With the Ryzen gaming tests I did runs both with its stock governor configuration (CPUFreq Ondemand) while also a second run with CPUFreq when switching to its performance governor. I'll have more CPU scaling driver/governor tests of Ryzen in the days ahead. The Intel CPU was using P-State in its default powersave state. At least under Windows, some have reported improved gaming performance if disabling SMT, but for the motherboard used for testing there is currently no toggle for the Simultaneous Multi-Threading capability.

These Intel vs. AMD Linux gaming benchmarks were carried out in a fully-automated and reproducible manner using the Phoronix Test Suite. The system power consumption was also measured of each system using a WattsUp Pro power meter that was interfacing with our PTS benchmarking framework.