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.

As mentioned over the weekend, a Phoronix reader that was excited about AMD's Bulldozer products had went out and immediately purchased an FX-4100 processor. This user graciously let me SSH into the system as soon as Ubuntu Linux was installed so that benchmarks from the AMD FX-4100 could be conducted. Here is a look at the AMD FX-4100 Bulldozer on Linux compared to Llano Fusion hardware and Intel Sandy Bridge processors.

If you are in the market for a new notebook with an Intel Sandy Bridge processor, one of the higher-end offerings is the Core i7 2630QM, which is a quad-core processor with Hyper Threading that boasts a 2.0GHz base frequency but can ramp up to 2.9GHz thanks to Turbo Boost. In this article are some Linux benchmarks of the Intel Core i7 2630QM compared to other mobile Intel CPUs.

Remember those AMD Bulldozer benchmarks we showed back in March from an early engineering sample that was published to OpenBenchmarking.org by one of AMD's partners months prior to the product launch? Well, since the consumer-grade Bulldozer chips are going to be out soon, AMD's partners are already supplying information on the AMD Trinity APUs that won't be launched until next year. The Linux performance appears quite competitive and there's also some new codenames and details to share.

Now that the Linux review of the Intel Core i3 2120 is published and there were initial benchmarks of the Core i5 2400S a few weeks back when looking at the state of Intel's "Sandy Bridge New Acceleration" architecture, the complete review of the Intel Core i5 2400S processor is here. The Core i5 2400S is meant to be an energy-efficient Sandy Bridge processor with a 65 Watt TDP compared to the i5-2400 non-S CPU that has a maximum TDP of 95 Watts like the other higher-end models, but this power reduction comes by scaling the CPU frequency back by 600MHz.

Since the January launch of Intel's Sandy Bridge processors, there have been countless articles on Phoronix about Sandy Bridge under Linux. Initially detailing the troubled experience of getting the integrated graphics working but then to a point of nirvana with the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver working well and a continual stream of performance optimizations and other enhancements since that point. Sandy Bridge under Linux is now great and it is to be loved. It's also looking like Ivy Bridge on Linux will be a success, but we're still a couple months out until that hardware is released to the public. Until then, we are looking at a few more Sandy Bridge processors. In this review, for those not at XDC2011 Chicago this week, is a look at the Linux performance of the Intel Core i3 2120.

Late last month there were the first Radeon HD 6550D graphics benchmarks under Linux that were published on Phoronix. There has also been a stream of A8-3850 benchmark result uploads -- among other AMD Fusion APUs -- to OpenBenchmarking.org. In this review we are providing a set of computational benchmarks from this "Llano" Fusion APU compared to a handful of other systems in our labs.

Earlier this week we delivered launch-day Linux benchmarks of the AMD A8-3500M "Llano" Fusion APU. The results for this next-generation, quad-core Fusion chip were impressive with the graphics and compute power being several times faster than the common AMD E-350 Fusion APU. In that article we just had two other systems the A8-3500M performance was being compared to, but here are some more Linux benchmarks comparing Llano to other systems running Ubuntu 11.04.

This morning there will be an introduction by Advanced Micro Devices of Llano, their next-generation Fusion APU. In this article are some launch-day Linux benchmarks of this newest 32nm accelerated processing unit using Ubuntu 11.04 with the A8-3500M part. This article is in continuation of our Radeon HD 6620G Linux benchmarks that were published at midnight.

For those willing to spend $999 USD on a new processor, Intel has a new Core i7 part out that is stunningly fast. The Core i7 990X is the $999 successor to the previously reviewed Core i7 970 that ups the core frequency to 3.46GHz and provides a 3.73GHz Turbo Boost frequency. This six-core CPU with Hyper Threading works wonderful with Linux.

Up to this point when looking at the Intel Sandy Bridge performance and compatibility under Linux we have been using the Intel Core i5 2500K and Intel Core i7 2820QM. Last week though we received the Core i3 2100 (along with a Core i7 990X) from Intel and today are putting the low-end ~$125 USD Sandy Bridge processor through its paces under Linux.

Lately we have been talking a lot about Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processors under Linux due to their very competitive performance and interesting graphics abilities, but on the AMD side there has not been too much to talk about. On the low-end there is the intriguing Fusion APUs, but on the high-end they don't have an answer to Sandy Bridge until delivering their new "Bulldozer" products closer to the summer. Fortunately, we have the first Linux scoop and performance benchmarks from engineering samples of their 16-core Interlagos server chip.

By now you have likely seen the AMD Fusion E-350 APU showcased on a number of Windows web-sites, but how is this AMD Accelerated Processor working in the Linux world? At Phoronix today are the first in-depth Ubuntu Linux benchmarks being published from this promising, low-power solution designed to compete with Intel's Atom.

While we are still battling issues with the Intel Linux graphics driver in getting that running properly with Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPUs (at least Intel's Jesse Barnes is now able to reproduce the most serious problem we've been facing, but we'll save the new graphics information for another article), the CPU performance continues to be very compelling. Two weeks ago we published the Intel Core i5 2500K Linux benchmarks that showed just how well this quad-core CPU that costs a little more than $200 USD is able to truly outperform previous generations of Intel hardware. That was just with running the standard open-source benchmarks and other Linux software, which has not been optimized for Intel's latest micro-architecture. Version 4.6 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) though is gearing up for release and it will bring support for the AVX extensions. In this article, we are benchmarking GCC 4.6 on a Sandy Bridge system to see what benefits there are to enabling the Core i7 AVX optimizations.

Earlier this month Intel released their first "Sandy Bridge" processors to much excitement. However, for Linux users seeking to utilize the next-generation Intel HD graphics found on these new CPUs, it meant problems. Up to this point we have largely been looking at the graphics side of Sandy Bridge, and while we have yet to publish any results there due to some isolated issues, on the CPU side its Linux experience and performance has been nothing short of incredible. Here are the first Linux benchmarks of the Intel Core i5 2500K processor.

Next week Intel is set to roll out their much-anticipated "Sandy Bridge" CPUs during the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. With these 32nm, LGA-1155 next-generation Intel Core processors will also come the Intel P67 Chipset on a whole selection of new motherboards at launch like the ECS P67H2-A2 and ASRock P67 Pro3. How well though will Intel's newest hardware play with Linux?

Following last week's KVM vs. VirtualBox benchmarks and then looking at the multi-core scaling of KVM virtualization, we now have up some benchmarks of Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) looking at the performance of this leading cloud computing service. This is just the start of some Amazon EC2 benchmarks with this article looking at the performance of their m1.large and m1.xlarge instances compared to some other hardware. There is also an OpenBenchmarking.org ID for those interested in replicating these tests.

Earlier this week we published benchmarks comparing Oracle VM VirtualBox to Linux KVM and the Linux system host performance. Some of the feedback from individuals said that it was a bad idea using the Intel Core i7 "Gulftown" with all twelve of its CPU threads available to the hardware-virtualized guest since virtualization technologies are bad in dealing with multiple virtual CPUs. But is this really the case? With not being able to find any concrete benchmarks in that area, we carried out another set of tests to see how well the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine scales against the host as the number of CPU cores available to each is increased. It can be both good and bad for Linux virtualization.

When finding out that an Intel Core i7 970 "Gulftown" CPU was on the way, which boasts six physical cores plus another six logical cores via Hyper Threading, immediately coming to mind was to try out this latest Intel 32nm processor with the Gallium3D LLVMpipe driver. There's a lot to love about Gallium3D when it comes open-source Linux graphics drivers with the possibilities being presented by the different state trackers (such as native Direct3D 11 support on Linux) and the hardware drivers themselves being more advanced, easier to write, and eventually should be much faster than the classic Mesa drivers for Linux. One of the drivers that has especially been of interest is LLVMpipe, which is an attempt to finally make a useful CPU-based software rasterizer for Linux by leveraging the Low-Level Virtual Machine infrastructure. Here is our introductory article to LLVMpipe and even with a Core i7 "Bloomfield" processor the driver is very demanding, but with Intel's Gulftown the results are somewhat surprising as we experiment with how this CPU-based driver scales up to twelve threads.

Intel will be introducing their first Sandy Bridge CPUs in the coming months, which we already know has Linux graphics support well underway, but for now the top-end Intel desktop processors are the Gulftown CPUs that were introduced earlier this year. The Gulftown CPUs boast six physical processing cores with Hyper Threading to put the total thread count per CPU at 12. Besides putting 12 processing threads at your disposal, these CPUs are built upon the 32nm die shrink of Nehalem and boast 12MB of L3 cache. The first Gulftown desktop product to launch was the Intel Core i7 980X, which was quickly followed by the Core i7 970, and we now finally have the chance to test out this incredibly fast but expensive processor under Linux.

Last week I put out new numbers showing the LLVMpipe performance with the latest Gallium3D code found in Mesa 7.9-devel. This Gallium3D driver accelerates all operations on the CPU rather than a GPU as a better software rasterizer than what is currently available for Linux, but even with a hefty Intel Core i7 CPU the OpenGL acceleration was still quite slow. In this article using an Intel Core i3 mobile CPU we are looking at the LLVMpipe performance again, but this time comparing it to the Intel graphics performance and also looking at the impact that the clock frequency and Hyper Threading have on this Gallium3D driver that heavily utilizes the Low-Level Virtual Machine for its CPU optimizations.

Earlier this week AMD announced the Phenom II X6 processors that are designed to offer "unbeatable" performance thanks to its six physical processing cores while not being priced too high. However, should you not be interested in the latest high-end CPUs, there still is a plethora of lower-end AMD parts on the market. One of AMD's low-priced offerings is the Athlon II X3 425, which is a triple-core AM3 processor that can easily overclock past 3GHz and is priced to sell at around $70 USD.

Earlier this month Intel rolled out their new Clarkdale processors that are built on a 32nm process and making them rather unique is that integrated on the dual-core Westmere-based part is an integrated graphics processor. The Clarkdale CPUs launched under the Core i3 and Core i5 brands (along with a Pentium version) and since their launch have received favorable reviews, well, under Windows. We have now received our Core i3 processor and have carried out various processor benchmarks under Linux to see how well Clarkdale runs with the penguins.

Earlier this month we provided a launch-day preview of the P55 Chipset on Linux along with benchmarks from the Core i5 750 and Core i7 870, which are the new quad-core Lynnfield processors. We noticed some odd performance issues under Linux when testing out these new processors, but Intel has since chimed in and we are in the process of running an updated set of tests.

Now that we have provided a brief overview of the Intel P55 and how it functions under Linux, our larger area of concentration is looking at the Linux performance of the P55 with the new Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 processors. We have a number of benchmarks in this article along with more information on these Lynnfield processors.

While nearly all of Intel's attention is focused on their newer LGA-1366 platform with the high-end Core i7 processors and then the forthcoming Core i5 series, there are still plenty of viable processors left for the LGA-775 motherboards. There are of course a number of different Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core 2 Extreme CPUs on the market, but beyond that Intel's Celeron family does still exist. Most computer enthusiasts simply write off the Celeron products as being too slow, but among the newer Celeron parts there are even some dual-core processors. For a forthcoming article we had picked up an Intel Celeron E1400 for looking at the Linux video decoding performance on a slow system (similar to our HD Video Playback With A $20 CPU & $30 GPU On Linux article), but as we have never published performance results for a dual-core Celeron on Linux, we have decided to get those numbers out there today for those that are interested.

Earlier this year AMD launched the Phenom II series to succeed the original quad-core Phenom processors, with these newer desktop CPUs being built upon a 45nm process, tripling the amount of Level 3 cache to 6MB, and offering support for both DDR2 and DDR3 system memory. Prior to the launch of the Phenom II we had tested the AMD Shanghai Opterons on Linux and benchmarked these CPUs on OpenSolaris too, which were the server/workstation version of this new AMD 45nm core. With the Phenom II series there is the X3 and X4 line-up for triple-core and quad-core processors, respectively. In this article we are looking at how well the AMD Phenom II X3 710 performs under Ubuntu Linux.

Earlier this month we published Intel Core i7 Linux benchmarks that looked at the overall desktop performance when running Ubuntu Linux. One area we had not looked at in the original article was the virtualization performance, but we are back today with Intel Core i7 920 Linux benchmarks when testing out the KVM hypervisor and Sun xVM VirtualBox. In this article we are providing a quick look at Intel's Nehalem virtualization performance on Linux.

Back in November Intel had formally launched the Core i7 series, but Linux benchmarks were not to be found. However, in the weeks that followed, results began to emerge through the Phoronix Test Suite and Phoronix Global. Over time there were many more Linux test results from the Phoronix Test Suite community, but now we have posted some of our own Intel Core i7 numbers from Ubuntu Linux.

In January we published a review of the AMD Shanghai Opteron CPUs on Linux when we looked at four of the Opteron 2384 models. The performance of these 45nm quad-core workstation/server processors were great when compared to the earlier AMD Barcelona processors on Ubuntu Linux, but how is their performance when running Sun's OpenSolaris operating system? Up for viewing today are dual AMD Shanghai benchmarks when running OpenSolaris 2008.11, Ubuntu 8.10, and a daily build of the forthcoming Ubuntu 9.04 release.

Last quarter AMD introduced their "Shanghai" Opteron processors that join the ranks of Intel's Harpertown Xeon CPUs that are 45nm quad-core server/workstation parts. Initial reviews of these new AMD Opteron processors have been very positive, but how do these chips perform with Linux? In this article we have our hands on a few of the fastest Shanghais, the AMD Opteron 2384 clocked at 2.7GHz, as we see how well they compare to the older "Barcelona" Opteron processors.