Processors Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 423 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for processors. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

While the Intel X99 series motherboards are popular right now with the Intel Core i7 Haswell Extreme Edition CPUs, some of these motherboards are also compatible with the Haswell-based Xeon processors. The MSI X99S SLI PLUS does support a number of the Haswell-EP Xeon processors, including the E5-2687W v3 that's a ten core processor plus Hyper Threading. In making for some interesting Linux results, MSI kindly sent over the Xeon E5-1680 v3 and E5-2687W v3 to test them with their X99S SLI PLUS motherboard under a variety of conditions with Linux.

RunAbove has launched the first major public cloud built around IBM's latest-generation Power 8 processors that when properly implemented can deliver up to 100 times the power of a classic x86 setup, according to the company. I've been running benchmarks in RunAbove's Power8 cloud the past few days and have been impressed, both with the performance and as my first time using the RunAbove cloud service.

With the Intel Core i7 5960X Haswell-E is an eight-core processor with Hyper Threading to yield sixteen logical threads, we're seeing how well this extreme Haswell processor really scales with modern open-source workloads as we benchmark the i7-5960X under Ubuntu Linux and see how the benchmarks scale with varying core counts.

With the X99 burned-up motherboard problem of last week appearing to be behind us with no further issues when using a completely different X99 motherboard, here's the first extensive look at the Core i7 5960X Haswell-E processor running on Ubuntu Linux.

As an update to my story from Friday about my X99 motherboard burning up when building a Core i7 5960X (Haswell-E) setup, which was followed by another reviewer independently running into a similar situation with his i7-5960X + X99 testing, I now have the system operational with using a new motherboard.

AMD today is rolling out three new FX-Series processors (the FX-8320E, FX-8370E, and FX-8370) while cutting prices on their existing Vishera AM3+ FX processors. AMD sent over the new FX-8370 and FX-8370E CPUs last week to Phoronix (the FX-8320E is still forthcoming) so we are here with the rundown on the Linux performance of these new FX CPUs compared to a wide variety of other Intel and AMD Linux systems with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Given recent comments by Phoronix readers, here are some fresh results from the AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core CPU when testing the different CPU scaling governors with the CPUfreq driver on the Linux 3.17 kernel.

Since last year AMD's had the FX-9590 as the top-end Vishera CPU that can top out at 5.0GHz with its Turbo Frequency, but initially this processor was only available to OEM system builds. Over time the OEM version of the FX-9590 became available to consumers while earlier this summer AMD launched a retail version of the FX-9590 that included the eight-core CPU with a closed-loop water cooling solution. Today we're reviewing this highest-end Vishera CPU to see how it compares to other AMD and Intel processors on Ubuntu Linux.

This morning Intel is lifting the lid on their Intel Core i7 high-end desktop processors for the LGA 2011-v3 socket. This new CPU line-up is what's been referred to as Haswell-E. We are in the process of testing Intel's Core i7 5960X Haswell-E under Linux but for now here's an overview of the new hardware.

AMD Kaveri APUs feature a configurable TDP whereby users can opt to run their A-Series APUs with a lower power consumption and operating temperature but at the cost of slightly reduced performance.

At the end of July AMD launched new Kaveri APU models: the A10-7800, A8-7600, and A6-7400K. AMD graciously sent over review samples on their A10-7800 and A6-7400K Kaveri APUs, which we've been benchmarking and have some of the initial Linux performance results to share today.

Up for review today on Phoronix is the Pentium G3258, the new processor Intel put out in celebration of their Pentium brand turning 20 years old. This new Pentium G3258 processor costs under $100 USD and comes unlocked for offering quite a bit overclocking potential while this Pentium CPU can be used by current Intel 8 and 9 Series Chipsets. Here's our first benchmarks of the Intel Pentium G3258 using Ubuntu Linux.

Last week at Computex Intel formally announced the Core i7 4790K "Devil's Canyon" processor as a new, high-end, refreshed Haswell part. The Intel Core i7 4790K tops out at 4.4GHz and is quite interesting for PC enthusiasts and performance junkies. Today we're delivering the first public tests of the i7-4790K Devil's Canyon run under Linux.

This weekend when publishing preview benchmarks of NVIDIA's Tegra K1 from the Jetson TK1 development board, there were numerous requests by Phoronix readers to see this high-end ARM SoC pitted against the new AMD AM1 APUs. In this article are some benchmarks of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on all of the AM1 Athlon and Sempron APUs compared to the Tegra K1 Cortex-A15 SoC.

Since receiving the NVIDIA Jetson TK1 ARM development board a few days ago that features the new Tegra K1 SoC I've been busy running a ton of benchmarks from this quad-core Cortex-A15 platform running Ubuntu Linux. Here's the first of some interesting numbers compared to other Intel x86 and ARM platforms.

Curious how AMD's new AM1 platform APUs compare to the original AMD Phenom processors? Wondering myself, I ran some tests showing how the Sempron 2650 and 3850 along with the Athlon 5150 and 5350 compare to the original Phenom 9500 and Phenom II X3 710 processors with RS780/RS880 motherboards. Besides the new APUs being competitive against the old hardware while costing much less than the original Phenom CPUs, their power consumption is also at a fraction of AMD's former high-end processors. Here's a brief but nice look at AMD's processing evolution in going from Phenom CPUs to today's AMD budget APUs.

With the initial Linux tests of the AMD Athlon 5150 / 5350 & Sempron 2650 / 3850 out of the way, I ran some basic overclocking tests on all four of these week-old AM1 APUs.

It's been a busy past few days since AMD launched their "AM1" Socketed Kabini APUs. After the initial Athlon 5350 Linux review on launch-day, I did some tests involving a faster kernel and newer Mesa code along with some reference DDR3 memory scaling benchmarks for these APUs with Jaguar processor cores. Since then the Athlon 5150 and Sempron 3850/2650 APUs arrived. After a busy weekend of benchmarking, here's the initial Ubuntu Linux benchmarks of all four AMD AM1 APUs that are available at this time: the Sempron 2650, Sempron 3850, Athlon 5150, and Athlon 5350. With these four new AMD APUs are also a number of thermal and power consumption tests.

Now that we've covered the general information about the new socketed Kabini APUs, here are our first benchmarks from the Athlon-branded Kabini APU we were seeded with by AMD: the Athlon 5350 with Radeon R3 Graphics. Let's see how this 25-Watt APU with four processor cores can perform under Ubuntu 14.04 Linux.

After much information being made public in March concerning AMD's AM1 platform that delivers socketed APUs for low-cost desktop systems, the first of these new socketed APUs are shipping today under the restored Athlon and Sempron branding. We've been fortunate enough to have one of the new Athlon AM1 APUs at Phoronix for a few days of testing.

AMD Kaveri APUs offer a configurable TDP to target running the APU at lower power rating and this feature can be configured on supported motherboards. While the configurable TDP is targeted for the lower-end Kaveri APUs, I ran some tests from the A10-7850K when bumping its TDP from 95 Watts to 45 to 65 Watts to see how the performance is impacted.

To complement the many Intel vs. AMD CPU/APU Linux benchmarks published earlier this week as part of our AMD A10-7850K "Kaveri" APU coverage, here's some results mostly examining the performance-per-Watt and overall system power consumption of the many different Intel and AMD processors running Ubuntu Linux.

Two days ago AMD launched their "Kaveri" APUs to mixed reactions. On launch-day we provided a Linux overview of the AMD A10-7850K APU and followed that with an Ubuntu Linux vs. Windows 8.1 performance comparison for this top-end Kaveri APU. Yesterday was then the AMD Kaveri APU compared to discrete AMD/NVIDIA GPUs and now today we've finally had the time to finish the tests most people have been looking forward to: the A10-7850K comparison against various other AMD and Intel CPU/APUs. These Linux tests cover a range of both processor and graphics testing from Ubuntu 14.04 across a wide selection of Intel and AMD hardware.

Aside from sharing the Linux overview of AMD's A10-7850K "Kaveri" APU on Linux, for your viewing pleasure today I also have out some early OpenGL graphics benchmarks comparing the performance of the A10-7850K APU under Microsoft Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu Linux in its current 14.04 development form. These tests are a precursor to many more interesting AMD Kaveri benchmarks in the coming days.

This morning AMD is releasing the first APUs in their Kaveri family, their most advanced APU ever with up to 12 compute cores and is a big push forward with their overall HSA architecture. We managed to get our hands on a Kaveri system with A10-7850K APU and in the days/weeks ahead there will be many Linux benchmarks looking at the next-generation AMD APU. Here's what Linux users need to know right now about AMD Kaveri APU Linux support.

The Core i5 4670 is a mid-range Intel "Haswell" processor that's quad-core, clocked at 3.4GHz, and can top out at 3.8GHz all for a price of just over $200 USD. If you happen to be after a mid-range CPU with decent Linux open-source graphics support, check out our new comparative benchmarks of the Intel Core i5 4670 on Ubuntu Linux.

Earlier today on Phoronix I delivered benchmarks showing Intel's Haswell graphics falling behind Ivy Bridge on Linux, something not seen previously and certainly not what's expected. Curious to see whether this likely Intel Haswell Linux performance regression was limited to just the HD Graphics or the processor performance overall, here's the complementary set of Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell benchmarks. These tests span the Core i3/i5/i7 series when using the latest Ubuntu 14.04 packages and the Linux 3.13 kernel with these benchmarks focusing upon the processor performance.

The Intel Pentium G3220 is just a dual-core budget processor but the performance of this Haswell-based CPU has proven to be decent from the Lini PC, especially when it comes to the Intel HD Graphics on Ubuntu.

For those curious about the performance of Intel's Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors when upgrading to Ubuntu 13.10 and the experimental Linux 3.13 along with the latest stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler, here's some fresh benchmarks from several different Intel Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs.

Last week Amazon unveiled the new "C3" instance types for their Elastic Compute Cloud platform. The C3 instance types deliver their highest processor performance in Amazon's cloud. The C3 instances are backed by Intel Xeon E5 "Ivy Bridge" processors, use SSD-based storage, support AVX and Turbo as part of the Ivy Bridge feature set, and also deliver on improved network performance in the cloud. Coming out of Phoronix today for helping you measure cloud performance are benchmarks of all the new C3 instance types and compared to some bare metal systems running locally.