Processors Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 373 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for processors. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

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.

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.