Gadget geeks aghast at guru's geriatric GPU
(2025/08/01)
- Reference: 1754077088
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/08/01/geeks_aghast_at_guru_gpu/
- Source link:
As work picks up on the forthcoming Linux 6.17, many joystick-wigglers are shocked by its millionaire dev's positively ancient AMD graphics card.
As we reported a few days ago, [1]version 6.16 of the Linux kernel is out with new and improved Rust module support. But that means that work is now picking up on the next version, kernel 6.17.
Some of Linux Founder Linus Torvalds's messages on the Linux Kernel Mailing list have revealed the GPU in his desktop machine. [2]The first refers to his "Radeon desktop", and [3]a second mentions the "same old boring Radeon RX 580" and says that "lspci calls it 'Ellesmere'." This GPU came out in – pause to adopt hushed tones, as appropriate for an ancient and respected elder – April 2017. Why, that's more than eight years ago!
[4]
To the less-than-keen eyes of the Reg FOSS desk, this looks to be a reasonably capable device from its [5]tech specs : it's a chunky dual-slot PCI-Express 3.0 x16 beast with two fans and 8GB of VRAM. Allegedly, it's driving an [6]ASUS ProArt 5K display. At least one Reg commenter [7]this year , "David 132," runs the same thing, and the responses he got were less than complimentary, suggesting that a modern card could be as much as – gasp! – twice as fast.
[8]
Linus could certainly afford something much beefier if he wanted: [9]Pro Publica reckons he makes about $1.5M per year from the Linux Foundation, and he's managed to [10]save a bit from that.
For non-gamers, though, this isn't too shabby. It's able to fling enough pixels to deliver decent refresh rates, which is all that really matters. His screen is about the same size and resolution as the one that this vulture uses in his home office, driven by a rather lower-spec GPU. Our main Linux testbeds run [11]ancient NVIDIA GPUs , nearly twice as old, which has caused us [12]significant driver-related grief this year. Old NVIDIA cards fall out of driver support while they're still perfectly useful for mainly 2D operation.
[13]
Back in ancient pre-COVID times, this vulture's office had multiple spare LCD displays lying around, and we ran a triple-head Linux box. Trying to find a matching pair of NVIDIA cards with the same generation of GPU – and which therefore could use the same NVIDIA driver – was a major trial. You can't run two different versions of the NVIDIA drivers at once, on either Linux or Windows. In the end, we managed to get an elderly but once-high-end AMD card with four outputs, and it worked perfectly from the first boot, with both Linux and Windows 10.
AMD kit wins here: the drivers are FOSS, and they can cover a much wider range of GPUs than NVIDIA ones. Once we got this decrepit fan heater of a graphics card, we were perfectly happy with it, and all three displays worked seamlessly. We suspect much the same applies for the kernel supremo: if you just want one big sharp screen, never mind a 2017 graphics card being too old; we suspect even a top-tier one twice that old might suffice.
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/29/linux_kernel_616/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wjn5Pg2Gp=o2NVv-nRKqE=E75AxUypWCCpQ7MDXuHx+YA@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wimp=a1zH4goKuXjXGMKUsuQDtB-TVNM+JRzk1ht6+c9Q@mail.gmail.com/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-580.c2938
[6] https://www.asus.com/displays-desktops/monitors/proart/proart-display-5k-pa27jcv/
[7] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/02/28/amd_rx_9070_series/#c_5027580
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460503801
[10] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/linus-torvalds-net-worth/
[11] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/nvs-4200m.c1741
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/nvidia_gpu_ubuntu_downgrade/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
As we reported a few days ago, [1]version 6.16 of the Linux kernel is out with new and improved Rust module support. But that means that work is now picking up on the next version, kernel 6.17.
Some of Linux Founder Linus Torvalds's messages on the Linux Kernel Mailing list have revealed the GPU in his desktop machine. [2]The first refers to his "Radeon desktop", and [3]a second mentions the "same old boring Radeon RX 580" and says that "lspci calls it 'Ellesmere'." This GPU came out in – pause to adopt hushed tones, as appropriate for an ancient and respected elder – April 2017. Why, that's more than eight years ago!
[4]
To the less-than-keen eyes of the Reg FOSS desk, this looks to be a reasonably capable device from its [5]tech specs : it's a chunky dual-slot PCI-Express 3.0 x16 beast with two fans and 8GB of VRAM. Allegedly, it's driving an [6]ASUS ProArt 5K display. At least one Reg commenter [7]this year , "David 132," runs the same thing, and the responses he got were less than complimentary, suggesting that a modern card could be as much as – gasp! – twice as fast.
[8]
Linus could certainly afford something much beefier if he wanted: [9]Pro Publica reckons he makes about $1.5M per year from the Linux Foundation, and he's managed to [10]save a bit from that.
For non-gamers, though, this isn't too shabby. It's able to fling enough pixels to deliver decent refresh rates, which is all that really matters. His screen is about the same size and resolution as the one that this vulture uses in his home office, driven by a rather lower-spec GPU. Our main Linux testbeds run [11]ancient NVIDIA GPUs , nearly twice as old, which has caused us [12]significant driver-related grief this year. Old NVIDIA cards fall out of driver support while they're still perfectly useful for mainly 2D operation.
[13]
Back in ancient pre-COVID times, this vulture's office had multiple spare LCD displays lying around, and we ran a triple-head Linux box. Trying to find a matching pair of NVIDIA cards with the same generation of GPU – and which therefore could use the same NVIDIA driver – was a major trial. You can't run two different versions of the NVIDIA drivers at once, on either Linux or Windows. In the end, we managed to get an elderly but once-high-end AMD card with four outputs, and it worked perfectly from the first boot, with both Linux and Windows 10.
AMD kit wins here: the drivers are FOSS, and they can cover a much wider range of GPUs than NVIDIA ones. Once we got this decrepit fan heater of a graphics card, we were perfectly happy with it, and all three displays worked seamlessly. We suspect much the same applies for the kernel supremo: if you just want one big sharp screen, never mind a 2017 graphics card being too old; we suspect even a top-tier one twice that old might suffice.
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/29/linux_kernel_616/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wjn5Pg2Gp=o2NVv-nRKqE=E75AxUypWCCpQ7MDXuHx+YA@mail.gmail.com/
[3] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wimp=a1zH4goKuXjXGMKUsuQDtB-TVNM+JRzk1ht6+c9Q@mail.gmail.com/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-rx-580.c2938
[6] https://www.asus.com/displays-desktops/monitors/proart/proart-display-5k-pa27jcv/
[7] https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/02/28/amd_rx_9070_series/#c_5027580
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460503801
[10] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/linus-torvalds-net-worth/
[11] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/nvs-4200m.c1741
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/29/nvidia_gpu_ubuntu_downgrade/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aI049EQhL9a1kkOpVVbYZQAAABg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Oh, Linus is running a recent graphics card!
alain williams
I run a Radeon HD 7850 (launched 2012) on my desktop Debian box. It does what I want: Mate desktop and can happily view MP3s, etc. I do not play games so I do not know if that would be a problem.
What is the point of running something that you do not need? It would take him time to update to something newer as well as create more digital waste.
Re: Oh, Linus is running a recent graphics card!
BenDwire
You VIEW MP3s? Do you see sounds, or have your headphones simply slipped onto the front of your head?
Joking aside, rich people don't get rich by spending money unnecessarily. If everything works for him, then there isn't really a problem.
(Typed on a 2015 Dell Optiplex, with onboard graphics and a very large pension fund, thank you very much)
A graphics card?
DS999
I haven't used a discrete graphics card since the 2000s! I just built a new PC with an AMD 9600X, and its 2 CUs are plenty good enough for desktop use. I suppose Linus probably uses beefier CPUs that don't have an iGPU though...
Re: A graphics card?
Tron
Seconded. I haven't had a graphics card since the days of the original Pentiums. And then it was the cheapest generic OEM card I could find. Mobo graphics are fine for general use. Ditto sound cards.
Kernel 6.16 and ancient AMD processors
Linus also had [1]something to say about my aging AMD FX-8350 processor (from 2012) after I reported that objtool didn't support its instruction set which caused the 6.16 build to crash with multiple errors and warnings:
And yeah, I think it's bulldozer-specific, which explains why nobody sees it (because bulldozer was one of the not-very-great AMD uarchs before they got it right with Zen).
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wiy=vZu63bfD8uJ6wSK8Pw_vsz-Fe2=WjFLGa_f1JnFWg@mail.gmail.com/