Question Linux creator ditches Intel, moves over to AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU

[JPB]

Linux creator ditches Intel, moves over to AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU

AMD came in like a wrecking ball with its Ryzen Threadripper a few years ago now, but the legendary creator of Linux -- Linus Torvalds -- has just shifted over to that Zen goodness.

Linus Torvalds is upgrading his main machine for the first time in 15 years, and in some very interesting news, Torvalds has moved away from using an Intel CPU. Torvalds has upgraded to a new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X processor, the first time in 15 years that he hasn't used an Intel-based CPU in his main machine.

The news of the upgrade came from the recent Linux 5.7-RC7 announcement, where Torvalds said: "In fact, the biggest excitement this week for me was just that I upgraded my main machine, and for the first time in about 15 years, my desktop isn't Intel-based. No, I didn't switch to ARM yet, but I'm now rocking an AMD Threadripper 3970x. My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be, which doesn't matter so much right now during the calming down period, but I will most definitely notice the upgrade during the next merge window".

This is a great day for AMD and Linux users, as we should see how Torvalds goes with his new Threadripper CPU. If there are any issues we're going to hear about it, so I'd dare say from here on in we should see massive improvements with Ryzen Threadripper CPUs and Linux.

 

[AnandThenMan]

What took him so long.

 

[maddie]

Linux creator ditches Intel, moves over to AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPU

AMD came in like a wrecking ball with its Ryzen Threadripper a few years ago now, but the legendary creator of Linux -- Linus Torvalds -- has just shifted over to that Zen goodness.

Linus Torvalds is upgrading his main machine for the first time in 15 years, and in some very interesting news, Torvalds has moved away from using an Intel CPU. Torvalds has upgraded to a new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X processor, the first time in 15 years that he hasn't used an Intel-based CPU in his main machine.

The news of the upgrade came from the recent Linux 5.7-RC7 announcement, where Torvalds said: "In fact, the biggest excitement this week for me was just that I upgraded my main machine, and for the first time in about 15 years, my desktop isn't Intel-based. No, I didn't switch to ARM yet, but I'm now rocking an AMD Threadripper 3970x. My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be, which doesn't matter so much right now during the calming down period, but I will most definitely notice the upgrade during the next merge window".

This is a great day for AMD and Linux users, as we should see how Torvalds goes with his new Threadripper CPU. If there are any issues we're going to hear about it, so I'd dare say from here on in we should see massive improvements with Ryzen Threadripper CPUs and Linux.

In 15 years to an AMD machine. A bit of a difference.

 

[amrnuke]

What took him so long.

He has a fairly close working relationship with Intel, lives/works near Intel's open source developers in Oregon, etc.

 

[fleshconsumed]

First upgrade in 15 years? I struggle to remember what was used in 2005. What was he using just before the upgrade? Pentium 4?

 

[amrnuke]

First upgrade in 15 years? I struggle to remember what was used in 2005. What was he using just before the upgrade? Pentium 4?

I believe he's been using various Intel systems since 2005. Not the same one.

"and for the first time in about 15 years, my desktop isn't Intel-based."

 

[SPBHM]

the OP makes it looks like he hadn't upgraded in 15 years... he sure did many times in this period, just not to AMD, which is easy to understand why
(Core 2 happened and until Zen AMD was always behind)

he currently had a 6700K.

 

[Topweasel]

the OP makes it looks like he hadn't upgraded in 15 years... he sure did many times in this period, just not to AMD, which is easy to understand why
(Core 2 happened and until Zen AMD was always behind)

he currently had a 6700K.

Which is surprising in its own right. I would have expected him to have HDET before this. Kinda crazy to go from a 4c8t CPU to 32c64t. But then again even for people who needed extra cores, it was never a decent value compared to desktop performance.

 

[JPB]

I've been meaning to upgrade for about 4 years now...and something always gets in my way. I am still running a FX 8120 @ 4.0. been that way for at least 6 years now...

I meant to upgrade to a Ryzen 1600X. But life got in the way, and I didn't. Then....Ryzen 2600X....and again, life happens. A very short time ago, I then wanted to upgrade to a Ryzen 3600X. But now...what really is the point, with the 4000's coming out soon ?

Anyway, what kind of upgrade, would I be looking at, going from a FX 8120....to a Ryzen 1600X ? And what would the % be if I went from a FX to a 3600X ? I have looked all over the place...for a comparison. I also checked Anands GPU compare .... still a no go.

What kind of increase would I be looking at ? Or if anyone has any links comparing FX to Ryzen...would be extremely helpful.

 

[Gideon]

What kind of increase would I be looking at ? Or if anyone has any links comparing FX to Ryzen...would be extremely helpful.

A lot.


Zen was a 52% single threaded IPC (per clock) uplift from piledriver (which itself was a noticable upgrade from bulldozer). Zen 2 added 15% ipc, zen3 will hopefully add a bit more.

In multithreaded workloads FX regressed performance with all-core loads due to CMT while Ryzen doesn't and extracts even 30+% extra from SMT. Oh and it also clocks a bit higher.


Here is my 3700x stock vs a random decent 8150 (@4 GHz) in geekbench 5:

Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-990FXA-UD3 vs Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-7A34 - Geekbench

 

[amrnuke]

I've been meaning to upgrade for about 4 years now...and something always gets in my way. I am still running a FX 8120 @ 4.0. been that way for at least 6 years now...

I meant to upgrade to a Ryzen 1600X. But life got in the way, and I didn't. Then....Ryzen 2600X....and again, life happens. A very short time ago, I then wanted to upgrade to a Ryzen 3600X. But now...what really is the point, with the 4000's coming out soon ?

Anyway, what kind of upgrade, would I be looking at, going from a FX 8120....to a Ryzen 1600X ? And what would the % be if I went from a FX to a 3600X ? I have looked all over the place...for a comparison. I also checked Anands GPU compare .... still a no go.

What kind of increase would I be looking at ? Or if anyone has any links comparing FX to Ryzen...would be extremely helpful.

No sense in doing that, may as well wait for the 10900X on 1nm!

In all seriousness, here's a Youtube video covering 8120 running up against Ryzen 5 2600. 60+%.

 

[JPB]

No sense in doing that, may as well wait for the 10900X on 1nm!

In all seriousness, here's a Youtube video covering 8120 running up against Ryzen 5 2600. 60+%.

Thanks for the two links guys. Much appreciated. As long as life don't get in the way, and this time I don't see how it could...it'll finally be upgraded.

 

[Adul]

Not only linus but also Greg Kroah-Hartman upgraded to a 3970 as well. not sure who was first but Wendel at level 1 techs built the system for him.

Greg Kroah-Hartman is a major Linux kernel developer. As of April 2013 he is the Linux kernel maintainer for the -stable branch, the staging subsystem, USB, driver core, debugfs, kref, kobject, and the sysfs kernel subsystems, Userspace I/O, and TTY layer