With 2024 in the books, here is a look back at the most popular Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles for 2024. In addition to the [1]three thousand original Linux/open-source news articles last year, there was 191 Linux hardware reviews / multi-page benchmark articles written by myself. AMD Zen 5 on Linux easily dominated the list of most popular articles for the year along with ZLUDA and several of the Intel Arrow Lake and Granite Rapids articles plus the Framework 16 laptop.

It was an interesting year and when looking at the list of 20 most popular reviews for 2024, a number of AMD Zen 5 reviews topped the list for the Ryzen 9000 series, Ryzen AI 300 series, and also the EPYC 9005 "Turin" server processors. Plus various Windows vs. Linux comparisons, benchmarks against the Apple M4, and other interesting benchmarking battles. AMD Zen 5 has been performing great and of mighty interest to Linux readers.

Before getting to that top 20 list for 2024, as a friendly reminder, please make it a New Year resolution to disable ad-block for this site if you currently engage any ad blocking when browsing this site. Operations for web publishers remain difficult given the sad state of the industry overall and many organizations just advertising on the likes of YouTube and Facebook. Among Linux/open-source focused content it remains even more difficult due to the higher rates of ad-block use. And in my case not many vendors looking to advertise to our predominantly Linux desktop audience paired with being a one man band at Phoronix and not having any dedicated ad sales team, etc. As an alternative to the reliance on frustrating ads, [2]Phoronix Premium gets you ad-free access to the site, multi-page articles on a single page, native dark mode, and other benefits all while helping the site to continue running strong in its 21st year. Thanks for reading and your support during these challenging times for the web industry. Tips via [3]PayPal and [4]Stripe remain graciously accepted as well as an alternative to going for Phoronix Premium outright.

So with that out of the way, here is what was exciting Phoronix readers the most in 2024:

[5]AMD Quietly Funded A Drop-In CUDA Implementation Built On ROCm: It's Now Open-Source

While there have been efforts by AMD over the years to make it easier to port codebases targeting NVIDIA's CUDA API to run atop HIP/ROCm, it still requires work on the part of developers. The tooling has improved such as with HIPIFY to help in auto-generating but it isn't any simple, instant, and guaranteed solution -- especially if striving for optimal performance. Over the past two years AMD has quietly been funding an effort though to bring binary compatibility so that many NVIDIA CUDA applications could run atop the AMD ROCm stack at the library level -- a drop-in replacement without the need to adapt source code. In practice for many real-world workloads, it's a solution for end-users to run CUDA-enabled software without any developer intervention. Here is more information on this "skunkworks" project that is now available as open-source along with some of my own testing and performance benchmarks of this CUDA implementation built for Radeon GPUs.

[6]AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Deliver Excellent Linux Performance

Last Wednesday was the review embargo for the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 desktop processors that proved to be very exciting for Linux workloads from developers to creators to AVX-512 embracing AI and HPC workloads. Today the review embargo lifts on the Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X and as expected given the prior 6-core/8-core tests: these new chips are wild! The Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X are fabulous processors for those engaging in heavy real-world Linux workloads with excellent performance uplift and stunning power efficiency.

[7]AMD Ryzen 5 9600X & Ryzen 7 9700X Offer Excellent Linux Performance

This could quite well be my simplest review in the past twenty years of Phoronix. The AMD Ryzen 9000 series starting with the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X launching tomorrow are some truly great desktop processors. The generational uplift is very compelling, even in single-threaded Linux workloads shooting ahead of Intel's 14th Gen Core competition, across nearly 400 benchmarks these new Zen 5 desktop CPUs impress, and these new Zen 5 desktop processors are priced competitively. I was already loving the Ryzen 7000 series performance on Linux with its AVX-512 implementation and performing so well across hundreds of different Linux workloads but now with the AMD Ryzen 9000 series, AMD is hitting it out of the ball park. That paired with the issues Intel is currently experiencing for the Intel Core 13th/14th Gen CPUs and the ~400 benchmark results makes this a home run for AMD on the desktop side with only some minor Linux caveats.

[8]AMD Ryzen 5 8500G: A Surprisingly Fascinating Sub-$200 CPU

After reviewing the Ryzen 7 8700G and the Ryzen 5 8600G as these new Zen 4 processors with RDNA3 integrated graphics, the latest AMD 8000G series CPU in the Linux benchmarking lab at Phoronix is the Ryzen 5 8500G. The Ryzen 5 8500G is a 6-core / 12-thread processor with RDNA3 graphics that retails for just $179 USD. Here's a look at how it's performing against other AMD and Intel processors on Ubuntu Linux. The Ryzen 5 8500G ends up being decent on the GPU side but making me genuinely excited is the Zen 4C prospects in the low-power space for AI workloads at the edge, low power servers, and other different deployments for great low-power performance. Under load this AVX-512 wielding budget desktop processor was typically pulling 50 Watts or less!

[9]Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 24.04 Linux Performance For The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

With all of my AMD Ryzen 9900X and 9950X Linux benchmarking and Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X reviews as well, many have wondered if AMD Zen 5 is just really great on Linux, if Windows 11 is in particularly poor shape for these new AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors, if it's just the different/diverse benchmarks being run, or simply why are these new desktop CPUs running so well on Linux but less so with Windows?

[10]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.

[11]Framework Laptop 16 Delivers Great Linux Support & Performance, Excellent Customizability

The review embargo has now expired on the Framework Laptop 16, the latest innovative and upgradeable laptop from this company that has made quite a name for itself with modular and user-upgradeable laptop designs for both AMD and Intel. The new Framework Laptop 16 offers even more customizability around the keyboard/touchpad and other options including over using a Radeon RX 7700S graphics module and more. Besides the immense customizability options and upgrades available with the Framework Laptop 16, the new model employs the AMD Ryzen 7040HS processor for even greater performance over the AMD Ryzen 7040U found with the latest Framework 13 model.

[12]AMD EPYC 9755 / 9575F / 9965 Benchmarks Show Dominating Performance

Last month Intel introduced their Xeon 6 "Granite Rapids" processors with up to 128 P cores, MRDIMM support, and other improvements as a big step-up in performance and power efficiency for their server processors. The Xeon 6900P series showed they could tango with the AMD EPYC 9004 Genoa/Bergamo processors in a number of areas, but Genoa has been around since November 2022... With today's AMD 5th Gen EPYC "Turin" launch, Zen 5 is coming to servers and delivers stunning performance and power efficiency. The new top-end AMD EPYC Turin processor performance can obliterate the competition in most workloads and delivers a great generational leap in performance and power efficiency. Here are our first 5th Gen AMD EPYC Turin benchmarks in looking at the EPYC 9575F, EPYC 9755, and EPYC 9965 processors across many workloads and testing in both single and dual socket configurations.

[13]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.

[14]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.

[15]AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370: 100+ Benchmarks Validate Zen 5's Captivating Power Efficiency & Performance

With the AMD Zen 5 generation, the timing is interesting where it's not the desktop processors launching first but happens to be in the form of AMD Ryzen AI 300 series laptops. With the last minute delay of the Ryzen 900 series by 1~2 weeks, the embargo lift for the Ryzen AI 300 series is timed for this Sunday morning where I can now present the first AMD Zen 5 Linux benchmark results. And with being the first Zen 5 chip in my lab, I have been pushing it hard... Here is an extensive look at the ASUS Zenbook S 16 I received with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 current flagship SoC compared to a variety of other AMD and Intel laptop models. The focus was on both the raw performance and the package performance-per-Watt for the overall power efficiency of this Zen 5 SoC. And with it being the first Zen 5 hardware in the lab, I didn't limit the selection to just conventional laptop workloads but also explored the performance characteristics for various other workloads of interest to diverse Linux users and for an idea of the HX 370 potential or similar Zen 5 chips appearing in thin client / edge / IoT type devices. This initial taste of AMD Zen 5 has me extremely excited about the performance potential of the upcoming Ryzen 9000 series and EPYC Turin processors.

[16]FreeBSD 14.1 vs. DragonFlyBSD 6.4 vs. NetBSD 10 vs. Linux Benchmarks

After last week looking at how FreeBSD 14.1 has improved performance over FreeBSD 14.0, here is an expanded cross-OS comparison now looking at how the new FreeBSD 14.1 stable release compares to the recently released NetBSD 10.0, the current DragonFlyBSD 6.4 release, and then CentOS Stream 9 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for some Linux comparison data points.

[17]AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Linux Performance

Today the review embargo lifts on the new AMD Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G desktop APUs. Announced back during CES, the Ryzen 8000G series pairs Zen 4 CPU cores with RDNA3 graphics and now also boasting Ryzen AI support too. Today's launch article is focusing on the AMD Ryzen 7 8700G Linux performance.

[18]AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Linux Performance: Zen 5 With 3D V-Cache

Ahead of tomorrow's availability of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor as the first Zen 5 CPU released with 3D V-Cache, today the review embargo lifts. Here is a look at how this 8-core / 16-thread Zen 5 CPU with 64MB of 3D V-Cache is performing under Ubuntu Linux compared to a variety of other Intel Core and AMD Ryzen desktop processors.

[19]Ubuntu 24.04 Boosts Performance, Outperforming Windows 11 On The AMD Ryzen Framework 16 Laptop

With the Framework 16 laptop one of the performance pieces I've been meaning to carry out has been seeing out Linux performs against Microsoft Windows 11 for this AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS powered modular/upgradeable laptop. Recently getting around to it in my benchmarking queue, I also compared the performance of Ubuntu 23.10 to the near final Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on this laptop up against a fully-updated Microsoft Windows 11 installation.

[20]35-Way Linux GPU Graphics Comparison, Initial NVIDIA RTX 40 SUPER Linux Benchmarks

Here's a fresh look at the AMD Radeon versus NVIDIA GeForce Linux graphics/gaming performance across a variety of workloads as well as our first look at the GeForce RTX 4070 series and RTX 4080 SUPER performance. With recently receiving the rest of the GeForce RTX 40 series line-up currently released, we're now able to share a comprehensive look at how the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series versus AMD Radeon RX 7000 series performance is under Linux.

[21]An Initial Benchmark Of Bcachefs vs. Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. F2FS vs. XFS On Linux 6.11

A number of Phoronix readers have been requesting a fresh re-test of the experimental Bcachefs file-system against other Linux file-systems on the newest kernel code. Your wish has been granted today with a fresh round of benchmarking across Bcachefs, Btrfs, EXT4, F2FS, and XFS using the Linux 6.11-rc2 kernel. This round of testing was carried out on the newly-released Solidigm D7-PS1010 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs that offer very speedy performance for modern Linux desktops and servers.

[22]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.

[23]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.

[24]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.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Open-Source-News-2024

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/phoronix-premium

[3] https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EA79CCDLNFJNW

[4] https://buy.stripe.com/28o02d1yG1Lp8H67ss

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/review/radeon-cuda-zluda

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-9950x-9900x

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-9600x-9700x

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-5-8500g

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-9950x-windows11-ubuntu

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-core-ultra-9-285k-linux

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-laptop-16

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9965-9755-benchmarks

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-os-amd-ryzen9-9950x

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m4-intel-amd-linux

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-ai-9-hx-370

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/review/bsd-linux-threadripper-7980x

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-8700g-linux

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-linux

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-16-windows-linux

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/review/nvidia-rtx-40-super-linux

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-611-filesystems

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-xeon-6980p-performance

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-4004

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-arc-early-2024