Intel Linux Performance Optimizations & Intel’s Other Open-Source Wins From 2024

In addition to the exciting hardware launches this year particularly around Xeon 6 Granite Rapids, Lunar Lake processors, and the new low-cost Battlemage graphics cards, what remains particularly exciting and consistent are all of Intel’s great investments around open-source and Linux. Over 2024 there were many exciting performance optimizations, new Linux kernel features, GCC and LLVM/Clang compiler toolchain improvements, and countless other enhancements made throughout the open-source ecosystem by Intel engineers.

Intel remains an undisputed leader when it comes to their investments within the open-source and Linux software ecosystems. From timely new hardware support (pre-launch) to enabling many exciting performance optimizations and other novel new software features, Intel has been a great Linux leader for many years.

In 2024 this kept up though some Linux kernel maintainers at Intel did leave the company in recent months as part of their downsizing, there has been less to report in areas like Clear Linux, and there are some bits like Gaudi 3 still not yet seeing any upstream kernel support. In any event below is a look at the most exciting Intel moments on Phoronix during 2024.

Intel Spots A 3888.9% Performance Improvement In The Linux Kernel From One Line Of Code
Intel’s Linux kernel test robot has reported a 3888.9% performance improvement in the mainline Linux kernel as of this past week.

KDE Plasma 6.1 Performing Much Better On Older Intel Integrated Graphics
With the recently released KDE Plasma 6.1 desktop environment, those still relying on old Intel integrated graphics should have a much more pleasant experience thanks to improvements made to the KWin compositor. For very old Intel integrated graphics, it can effectively be a night and day difference upgrading to the new Plasma 6.1 desktop.

Intel Discontinues High-Speed, Open-Source H.265/HEVC Encoder Project
As part of Intel’s Scalable Video Technology (SVT) initiative they had been developing SVT-HEVC as a BSD-licensed high performance H.265/HEVC video encoder optimized for Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. But recently they’ve changed course and the project has been officially discontinued.

Intel Continues Prepping The Linux Kernel For X86S
Nearly one year ago Intel published the X86S specification (formerly stylized as “X86-S”) for simplifying the Intel architecture by removing support for 16-bit and 32-bit operating systems. X86S is a big step forward with dropping legacy mode, 5-level paging improvements, and other modernization improvements for x86_64. With the Linux 6.9 kernel more x86S bits are in place for this ongoing effort.

Targeted Intel oneAPI DPC++ Compiler Optimization Rules Out 2k+ SPEC CPU Submissions
SPEC has effectively invalidated more than two thousand SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark submissions after it was discovered the Intel oneAPI DPC++ compiler was effectively “cheating” per their standards with a targeted optimization.

Awesome Changes Coming With Linux 6.9: Lots From Intel/AMD, FUSE Passthrough & More Rust
Depending upon how Linus Torvalds is feeling today, Linux 6.8 could debut today as stable and in turn mark the opening of the Linux 6.9 merge window… Otherwise it will be punted off by one week. In any event, there’s a lot of interesting work queuing for Linux 6.9 as shared in today’s preview.

It’s Becoming Possible To Use The Webcam On Newer Intel Laptops With Open-Source Linux
While Intel typically does a great job with their open-source Linux hardware support with enabling all features under Linux and doing so in a timely manner — often well in advance of the client and server hardware availability — an exception in recent years has been around the web cam support for many newer Intel laptops. Since Alder Lake an increasing number of Intel-powered laptops have been relying on a raw MIPI camera sensor connected to the IPU6 IP. Intel has been tightly controlling the intellectual property around IPU6 so in turn their Linux support has consisted of an out-of-tree kernel driver and a proprietary user-space component. But thanks to Linaro and Red Hat, an open-source alternative has been forming.

Updated Intel Meteor Lake Tuning For Linux Shows Huge Performance/Power Improvements
It’s like magic with one line of code changed in the Linux kernel that Intel is reporting up to 19% performance improvement for Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” and up to an 11% improvement in performance per Watt. Or in another EPP mode, the power consumption during video playback can be reduced by 52%!

AMD & Intel Team Up For UALink As Open Alternative To NVIDIA’s NVLink
It’s rare for an advanced media briefing to involve representatives from both AMD and Intel, but that happened yesterday. AMD and Intel along with Broadcom have formed the Ultra Accelerator Link “UALink” as a new open standard they are hoping to use to take on NVIDIA’s proprietary NVLink interface.

Linux 6.7 Released With Bcachefs, Intel Meteor Lake In Good Shape & Nouveau GSP Support
As anticipated Linus Torvalds went ahead and just released the Linux 6.7 kernel as the first new version of 2024.

Some Intel Linux Driver Maintainers Have Left The Company
With the recent Intel layoffs and early retirement / buyout packages, I have been curious to see what impact it will have on the open-source/Linux software engineers at the company. There’s at least a few driver maintainers that have unfortunately departed the company but at least no major exodus of their well respected Linux software engineers.

9elements Takes Over Intel 1st Gen Xeon Scalable “Skylake” Support Within Coreboot
For those still running a 1st Generation Xeon Scalable “Skylake” era server, support for it within the open-source Coreboot firmware may continue to improve all these years later thanks to firmware consulting firm 9elements.

Intel’s FRED Looks Like It Could Be Ready For Linux 6.9
For the better part of two years we’ve seen Intel open-source software engineers working on preparing the Linux kernel for FRED, the Flexible Return and Event Delivery for defining new transitions for changing privilege levels. Intel’s been working hard on the FRED kernel plumbing for better performance, lower response times, and improved robustness and it’s looking like FRED could be set to land come Linux 6.9.

Open-Source Intel & AMD Drivers Make Quick Progress On Vulkan Roadmap 2024 Extensions
Following this morning’s embargo lift on the Vulkan Roadmap 2024 specification, Mesa merge requests were opened by Intel and RADV stakeholders in beginning to implement the new extensions for these Mesa Vulkan drivers and promoting existing extensions to their newly-minted state.

Linux Fixing A “Hilarious/Revolting Performance Regression” Around Intel KVM Virtualization
It’s not too often that “fixes” to the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) are noteworthy but today is an interesting exception with among the KVM fixes sent in today ahead of the Linux 6.13-rc3 tagging is for beginning to deal with a “hilarious/revolting” performance regression affecting recent generations of Intel processors. This performance regression won’t be fully worked around until Linux 6.14 but at least there is an interim step in place once the code is merged later today.

Intel’s Open-Source Vulkan Driver Wired Up To Support AMD’s Radeon Memory Visualizer
While AMD’s GPUOpen team developed the Radeon Memory Visualizer for their own Radeon graphics processors, thanks to the software working out well and being open-source and the profiling/dump format being public, the Intel open-source Vulkan Linux driver has added support for it. With the Intel ANV Mesa driver you can now generate Radeon Memory Visualizer (RMV) compatible dumps that can then be loaded into the GPUOpen software for analyzing the video memory behavior of Intel’s integrated and discrete graphics.

Linux 6.8 Is Very Exciting With Intel Xe Driver, Raspberry Pi 5 Graphics & New Hardware
Linux 6.8 could debut as stable as soon as tomorrow if all goes well… Linus Torvalds last week was unsure whether an extra release candidate would be needed after the quiet 6.8-rc7 release. This week’s seen a continued flow of fixes land, so we’ll see what Linus decides on Sunday but in any event there are already a number of early 6.9 pull requests.

Linux Kernel Patched For Branch History Injection “BHI” Intel CPU Vulnerability
Disclosed back in March 2022 was Branch History Injection (BHI) as a new Spectre vulnerability affecting Intel and Arm CPUs. Then in July of 2022 were patches for Intel working on hardware-based prevention for Spectre-BHI attacks. Now two years later the Linux kernel is seeing mitigations added for the native Branch History Injection vulnerability given a new “Native BHI” variant.

KVM Virtualization With Linux 6.9 Brings More Optimizations For Intel & AMD
The Kernel-based Virtual Machine changes for Linux 6.9 continue to enhance the capabilities of the open-source Linux virtualization software stack.

Intel Makes Open-Source Its Python NPU Acceleration Library
Intel has made open-source its NPU Acceleration Library (intel-npu-acceleration-library) as a user-space library for Windows and Linux systems for interfacing with the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) found initially on their new Meteor Lake laptops.

Big Speed Boost For AES-GCM Performance On Intel & AMD CPUs Queued Ahead Of Linux 6.11
The patches recently covered on Phoronix for up to 162% faster AES-GCM encryption/decryption with modern Intel and AMD processors is now queued for introduction in the upcoming Linux 6.11 cycle!

Linux 6.9 Released With Faster Intel Core Ultra Performance, Larger Console Fonts Option
Linux 6.9 is out! Linux 6.9 has been released on time as the newest stable kernel version for rolling-release Linux distributions and other summer releases/updates. Linux 6.9 has a number of exciting features and improvements for those habitually updating to the newest version.

Intel Thread Director Virtualization Patches Boost Some Workloads By ~14%
Intel’s hybrid core handling for modern Intel Core CPUs with a mix of P and E cores has largely been in good shape under Linux for a while. Intel Thread Director support has come along with various Linux kernel improvements to better handle task placement between the P and E cores. One area seeing new work now though is for virtual machines (VMs) running on Intel hybrid systems with a new Linux kernel patch series working on Thread Director Virtualization.

BeOS-Inspired Haiku Enabling More Intel Hardware & Driving Kernel Optimizations
The Haiku open-source operating system project inspired by BeOS is out with their newest monthly development summary to highlight advancements made to this unique OS.

“The Finals” Can Run With Intel Graphics On Linux When Hiding The Fact It’s An Intel GPU
Embark Studios’ The Finals free-to-play first person shooter has proven quite popular since its release in early December. The Finals is a game powered by Unreal Engine 5 that has been running on Linux thanks to Valve’s Steam Play (Proton + VKD3D-Proton). With the latest Mesa driver activity, Intel Arc Graphics on Linux with their open-source driver can now handle this popular game.

Intel Takes Open-Source Hyperscan Development To Proprietary Licensed Software
While Intel can be praised for their dozens (or likely by now, hundreds) of open-source projects they maintain and countless other existing open-source software projects they actively contribute to and are covered by Phoronix on a near-daily basis, not everything there is open-source. Intel is a wonderful and leading open-source promoter but occasionally there are closed-source blobs or questionable moves such as today: Intel is taking their Hyperscan library development from BSD-licensed open-source software to now the Intel Proprietary License moving forward.

“Indirector” Attack Disclosed For Intel Alder Lake & Raptor Lake CPUs
UC San Diego researchers have gone public with Indirector, high-precision branch target injection attacks on the indirect branch predictor. This UCSD security researchers found Indirector impacting recent Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors. Intel believes though that no further mitigations are required.

NovaCustom Announces “Fastest Coreboot Laptops In The World” Built On Intel Core Ultra
The Netherlands-based PC vendor NovaCustom that specializes in privacy/security minded hardware and user freedoms has announced their V54 and V56 laptops. These new laptops powered by Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” SoCs are self-proclaimed as the fastest Coreboot laptops in the world.

Linux 6.8 Brings More Sound Hardware Support For Intel & AMD, Including The Steam Deck
Waiting for pulling into the mainline kernel once Linus Torvalds is back online following Portland’s winter storms is the sound subsystem updates for Linux 6.8, which include a lot of new sound hardware support.

Intel’s Xe Driver Preps For SR-IOV Support & More Lunar Lake With Linux 6.11
On Thursday the first set of Intel Xe driver feature updates were submitted to DRM-Next of material intended for merging with the Linux 6.11 kernel in July.

That’s out of hundreds of Intel Linux original news stores on Phoronix this calendar year. And then, of course, a lot of exciting hardware reviews and benchmark pieces too this year. Here are those featured article/review highlights:

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K “Arrow Lake” Delivers Strong Linux Performance
Earlier this month Intel announced the Core Ultra 200S “Arrow Lake” processors and today they go on sale. In turn, the review embargo also lifts for these new desktop processors. Up first today on Phoronix is the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Linux performance review for this flagship 24-core desktop processor.

Intel Continues To Show AMD The Importance Of Software Optimizations: 16% More Ryzen 9 9950X Performance
As part of my ongoing AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Linux testing, last week I provided a look at the AVX-512 benefits to Zen 5 and also the Windows vs. Linux performance for the Ryzen 9 9950X. For sharing today is a look at multiple Linux distributions up and running on the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) desktop. Among the distributions in the mix are Intel’s Clear Linux distribution that is optimally tuned for maximum x86_64 Linux performance and once again even on AMD hardware shows the significant benefits to a well-tuned Linux software stack.

Apple M4 Mac Mini With macOS vs. Intel / AMD With Ubuntu Linux Performance
Apple last week released their latest iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro products powered by their fourth-generation M-series Apple Silicon. The new Mac Mini in particular is interesting for under $600 starting out with the all re-designed Mac Mini with 10-core M4 and now the base model having 16GB of memory. It will take some time before there is any reasonable Linux support on the M4 hardware with Asahi Linux, but for those curious about how the M4 Mac Mini with macOS compares to AMD Ryzen and Intel Core CPUs under Linux, here are some preliminary benchmarks.

Intel Xeon 6980P “Granite Rapids” Linux Benchmarks
With the Intel Xeon 6900P “Granite Rapids” launch today the review embargo has now expired. I began with my Intel Granite Rapids Linux benchmarking a few days ago and have initial benchmarks to share for the flagship Xeon 6980P processors paired with MRDIMM 8800MT/s memory. This is just the beginning of a lot of Granite Rapids benchmarks to come on Phoronix. Compared to the existing AMD EPYC competition and prior generation Intel Xeon processors, the Xeon 6900P series performance surpassed my expectations and has debuted as an incredibly strong performer. In some areas of HPC and other workloads, Intel is able to regain leadership performance with Granite Rapids paired with MRDIMMs. In AI workloads where the software is optimized for AMX, the new Xeon 6900P CPUs can showcase staggering leads.

AMD EPYC 4004 Benchmarks: Outperforming Intel Xeon E-2400 With Performance, Efficiency & Value
Over the past several years we have seen AMD Ryzen processors being used for low-cost servers, budget web hosting platforms, game servers, and more. Since the Ryzen 5000 series we have seen the likes of ASRock Rack and Supermicro putting out interesting budget-friendly Ryzen servers and that has ramped up even more with AMD Ryzen 7000 series server performance being stellar thanks to AVX-512 and other improvements making it more practical for such workloads. AMD has now solidified its positioning for entry-level servers with the introduction of the EPYC 4004 series processors. The EPYC 4004 series is derived from the Ryzen 7000 series offerings to facilitate cost conscious server options and putting the Intel Xeon E-2400 series in the crosshairs. In this review is a look at the EPYC 4004 series along with benchmarks of nearly the entire EPYC 4004 product stack compared to Intel’s current top-end Xeon E-2400 series processor, the Intel Xeon E-2488 Raptor Lake.

Intel Arc Graphics A580 / A750 / A770 Linux Performance For Early 2024
Earlier this week I posted a 35-way Linux graphics card comparison featuring the new NVIDIA RTX 40 SUPER graphics cards and other recent AMD and NVIDIA hardware I had available while using the latest Linux drivers. Intel Arc Graphics desktop graphics cards weren’t part of that comparison for simply running out of time prior to the RTX 4080 SUPER embargo lift to facilitate that re-testing. But for those interested, here is a fresh look at the Intel Arc Graphics A580 / A750 / A770 Linux performance against those NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics cards on Ubuntu Linux.

Intel Core i3 14100 / i5 14500 vs. AMD Ryzen 5 8500G / 8600G In 500+ Benchmarks
As part of the recent AMD Ryzen 5 8500G and 8600G Linux reviews I ended up picking up the Core i3 14100 and Core i5 14500 Raptor Lake Refresh processors for the similarly-priced Intel competition. It’s not too often receiving review samples from Intel of the lower-end processor SKUs, so I’m back around today with even more benchmarks of these lower-tier AMD and Intel processors. In this article are 500+ benchmarks looking at the CPU and iGPU performance of the Intel Core i3 14100 and Core i5 14500 processors up against the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 5 8600G processors under Ubuntu Linux.

AMD Ryzen 5 8400F vs. Intel Core i5 14400F: 230+ Benchmarks For Sub-$200 CPU Performance
This week AMD announced the Ryzen 5 8400F and Ryzen 7 8700F processors as new Zen 4 budget CPU contenders lacking any integrated graphics. While part of the Ryzen 8000 series, the 8400F also lacks the Ryzen AI support found in the higher-end SKUs. The Ryzen 5 8400F offers 6 cores / 12 threads, a 4.2GHz base clock and 4.7GHz boost clock, and a 65 Watt TDP while retailing for $169~189 USD. Here are some initial benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F in putting it up against 230+ benchmarks under Linux while also monitoring the CPU power consumption and comparing it to Intel’s closest contender as the Core i5 1440F that retails for just under $200.

AMD Zen 4 vs. Intel Core Ultra 7 “Meteor Lake” In 400+ Benchmarks On Linux 6.10
In part for preparing for upcoming Linux testing of AMD Ryzen AI 300 series laptops, I’ve been re-benchmarking various Intel/AMD laptops around the lab at Phoronix. In today’s article is a fresh look at how the existing AMD Zen 4 laptop performance in the form of the popular Framework 13 and Framework 16 laptops is competing with the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H “Meteor Lake” SoC while using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and upgrading to the latest Linux 6.10 development kernel as well as the newest Mesa open-source graphics driver support.

Intel Xeon 6780E / Xeon 6766E 144-Core Performance Benchmarks
With Intel’s launch today of the Xeon 6700E series processors formerly codenamed Sierra Forest I am now able to share benchmarks of these new E-core server processors. Here is an initial look at the Intel Sierra Forest Linux performance using the Xeon 6766E and Xeon 6780E 144-core server processors in both single and dual socket configurations compared to prior Intel Xeon processors and the AMD EPYC competition.

AMD Ryzen 7000/8000 Series vs. 14th Gen Intel Core CPU Performance On Linux 6.10 With 400+ Benchmarks
In preparation for upcoming CPU launches I have been spending the past month re-testing the various Intel Core and AMD Ryzen current generation processors on the very latest Linux software stack and latest system BIOS along with some updated and new benchmarks. For those wanting a fresh look at how the current AMD Ryzen 7000 and 8000 series processors are competing with 14th Gen Intel Core (Raptor Lake Refresh) processors, this article is for you with 18 processors and 443 benchmarks being carried out while using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and upgrading to the Linux 6.10 development kernel.

Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 24.10 Performance For Intel Core Ultra 7 Lunar Lake
Following my recent Intel Core Ultra 7 200V “Lunar Lake” Linux benchmarks and looking at the Xe2 Lunar Lake graphics (including Windows 11 vs. Linux already), you may be wondering about the Lunar Lake CPU performance between Windows and Linux… Here are some benchmarks of the ASUS Zenbook S 14 with Core Ultra 7 256V under Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.10 Linux.

Intel Arc B580 Graphics Open-Source Driver Linux Gaming Performance
Last week Intel announced the Arc B-Series Battlemage graphics cards as their first Xe2 discrete GPUs. Ahead of the Arc B580 graphics card hitting Internet retailers tomorrow, today the review embargo lifts on the Intel Arc B580. Here is what to expect from the Linux driver support at launch for the Intel Battlemage graphics cards and how the Arc B580 is performing for Linux gaming/graphics workloads.

AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series Dominates Intel Core Ultra 7 Lunar Lake Performance For Linux Developers & Creators
Earlier this week I delivered initial Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake graphics benchmarks on Linux while today the focus is on Lunar Lake’s CPU performance. The Xe2 graphics performance under Linux was disappointingly slow with it performing even worse than Meteor Lake while RDNA3.5 graphics led. Intel has been investigating the Xe2 Linux graphics performance but I haven’t heard any updates yet. Today the attention is on the Lunar Lake CPU side under Linux and it too isn’t looking too good. The performance of this 8-core Core Ultra 7 256V SoC is poor in real-world multi-threaded scenarios and the performance-per-Watt is only compelling in a subset of workloads. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 Zen 5 SoCs tended to deliver the superior performance and power efficiency under Linux.

Intel’s Linux Software Optimizations Still Pay Off For Xeon 6700E “Sierra Forest” E-Core CPUs
When testing Intel’s aggressive software Linux optimizations shipped by way of their in-house Clear Linux distribution, I am most often testing it on their high core count Xeon processors with AVX-512… Over the years in dozens of Phoronix articles there have been countless metrics showing off the out-of-the-box performance benefits from leveraging software built for higher x86_64 micro-architecture feature levels, employing compiler-based function multi-versioning, and the other extensive performance tuning carried out by Intel software engineers. But now with the Intel Xeon 6700E “Sierra Forest” series now being available for these all-E-core server processors, I was curious about quantifying the Clear Linux benefits over the likes of Ubuntu Linux. Here are those benchmarks for those curious about the difference.

Intel Core Ultra 7 Meteor Lake vs. AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Performance
In recent days there have been leaks about an MSI “CLAW” gaming handheld device set to be announced this coming week at CES in Las Vegas. Making this gaming handheld device interesting is that unlike the Valve Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally or Legion Go, it’s expected to be the first handheld featuring an Intel Meteor Lake SoC. In particular, the recently launched Intel Core Ultra 7 155H. For those curious about what the performance is likely to roughly be in comparison to the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, here are some benchmarks looking at the performance of these competing SoCs.

Intel Raptor Lake 0x129 CPU Microcode Performance Impact On Linux
Motherboard vendors have begun releasing updated BIOS versions for Intel Core 13th/14th Gen motherboards that offer the new “0x129” CPU microcode that is intended to address the Raptor Lake stability issues that have been causing instability problems and crashing errors for a growing number of Intel Core 13th/14th Gen processors. Intel reported in their (Windows) testing that the 0x129 CPU microcode should offer negligible performance impact but I was curious to run my benchmarks under Linux of this new CPU microcode.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X & Intel Core i9 14900K: Ubuntu 22.04 vs. 23.10 vs. 24.04 Linux Performance
As part of my ongoing benchmarking of the newly-released Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Linux distribution, today’s focus is looking at the high-end Intel Core i9 14900K and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X desktops while comparing the performance across Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS, Ubuntu 23.10, and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for dozens of workloads.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS & Fedora 40 Continue To Trail Intel’s Linux Performance Optimizations
While Canonical has been investing more into the performance of Ubuntu Linux and engaged some new performance improvements in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, it’s still not the fastest Linux distribution out there on x86_64 hardware. Similarly, the recently released Fedora Workstation 40 features the brand new GCC 14 compiler and other leading-edge open-source software packages, but there’s still more performance left on the table as shown by Intel. Here are some fresh benchmarks looking at how Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Fedora Workstation 40 are competing with Intel’s in-house Clear Linux distribution that offers aggressive x86_64 Linux performance defaults and the best possible out-of-the-box Linux performance on modern x86_64 hardware.

One-Line Patch For Intel Meteor Lake Yields Up To 72% Better Performance, +7% Geo Mean
Covered last week on Phoronix was a new patch from Intel that with tuning to the P-State CPU frequency scaling driver was showing big wins for Intel Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” performance and power efficiency. I was curious with the Intel claims posted for a couple benchmarks and thus over the weekend set out to run many Intel Meteor Lake benchmarks on this one-line kernel patch… The results are great for boosting the Linux performance of Intel Core ultra laptops with as much as 72% better performance.