Ubuntu Linux Evaluating x86-64-v3 Based Build - AVX & Newer Intel/AMD CPUs

Canonical is experimenting with x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels! They have produced an experimental build of Ubuntu Server using x86_64_v3 for requiring basically Intel and AMD CPUs with AVX capabilities. But they aren't yet committing to it as a default or when such a change may materialize.

As part of Ubuntu optimizing performance for Intel/AMD x86_64 systems, Intel is exploring possible x86-64-v3 use, which is the feature level adding AVX/AVX2, BMI1, BMI2, FMA, and other newer CPU feature levels. This basically would limit the Intel and AMD CPU support on Ubuntu Linux to roughly ~2015 era hardware and newer. It's roughly Intel Haswell era processors and newer.

Canonical is still determining how many Ubuntu Linux users are running on x86-64-v2 or older hardware as well as quantifying the performance benefits to x86-64-v3. For what it's worth, Red Hat and SUSE have gone the more conservative route of an x86-64-v2 baseline.

See this Canonical blog post for more details on their initial ideas around Ubuntu Linux x86-64-v3 support. There is this Discourse thread with an Ubuntu 23.04 x86-64-v3 build available (yes, 23.04 and not the newest 23.10).

It will be very interesting to see what Canonical decides for an x86_64 baseline for future Ubuntu Linux versions and whether they will change it for the upcoming Ubuntu 24.04 LTS version.