Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, moves to AMD after 15 years of Intel systems

For the past few years, Torvalds has commented a lot about Intel’s shortcomings publically, lamenting the company’s ECC memory policy, its Xeon differentiation, and their failure to execute its roadmap over the past number of years.

Now, Torvalds has moved to a new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X-based system, a PC that’s said to be able to complete test builds “three times faster” than before. While Linus didn’t specify what processor was used in his previous system, a 3x performance improvement is nonetheless an impressive feat. 

Below is what Linus Torvalds has to say about his new AMD-based system. 

    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.