--- title: "Linux 7.3 is Shaping Up to Be One of The Most Performance-Focused Kernel Releases in Years" url: https://daily.dev/posts/linux-7-3-is-shaping-up-to-be-one-of-the-most-performance-focused-kernel-releases-in-years-y42pwcjuh source_url: https://feed.itsfoss.com/link/24361/17427617/linux-7-3-preview type: article source: "It's Foss" published: 2026-08-24T18:23:24.287Z updated: 2026-08-25T09:55:27.991Z tags: ["linux", "performance"] reading_time: 5 upvotes: 3 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Linux 7.3 is Shaping Up to Be One of The Most Performance-Focused Kernel Releases in Years **[It's Foss](https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss)** · 5 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Linux 7.3's merge window has brought a wave of performance improvements. Btrfs direct I/O now nears 95% of theoretical throughput via an IOmap bounce buffer, logging and fsync fixes yield roughly 5x gains, and the free-space cache defaults to v2. EXT4 gains parallel direct I/O writes and a faster multi-block allocator, with a reworked IOmap layer pushing NVMe IOPS from 1.92 million to 2.19 million. Peter Zijlstra's flatten-the-pick scheduler patches improve frame consistency on older hardware, and Intel hybrid CPU scheduling is fixed for Alder Lake, Lunar Lake, and Panther Lake. Memory management fixes cut KSM lock stalls from ~700ms to under 2ms and speed up zsmalloc for zRAM/Zswap, with Raspberry Pi 4B seeing up to 1.83x gains. SMP-related real-time latency is also reduced, dropping DPDK worst-case delay from ~17ms to ~1.5ms. Smaller changes include new RISC-V ISA extensions, EFI runtime call timeouts, better RAID 5/6 algorithm selection, and new AES library APIs. Stable release is expected around October. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What performance improvements does Linux kernel 7.3 bring to Btrfs direct I/O? Btrfs direct I/O now routes through an IOmap bounce buffer instead of falling back to buffered I/O, raising throughput from around half of theoretical maximum to close to 95 percent. Separate fixes in the logging and fsync paths each add roughly 5x gains, and the default free-space cache moves from v1 to v2 for better safety and speed. _Track kernel filesystem changes like this on daily.dev before rolling out storage-heavy workloads._ ### How much faster is EXT4 with the new IOmap layer in Linux 7.3? On fast NVMe drives, the reworked IOmap layer pushes EXT4 from 1.92 million IOPS to 2.19 million in testing. The IOmap rework is built around a single iterator callback the compiler can inline instead of dispatching indirectly, and EXT4 also gains parallel direct I/O writes and a multi-block allocator that skips unneeded work through fallocate(). _Developers benchmarking storage performance can follow kernel filesystem updates like this on daily.dev._ ### What does the flatten-the-pick scheduler change fix in Linux 7.3? Peter Zijlstra's flatten-the-pick patches rework cgroup scheduling around a single runqueue instead of the older, hitch-prone design, improving both frame rate and frame-time consistency, as shown in testing on an aging Sandy Bridge system paired with an AMD Radeon RX 580. This mainly benefits gaming or interactive workloads on older or resource-constrained hardware. _Anyone chasing smoother frame times can keep up with scheduler tweaks like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Btrfs Ready With More Performance Improvements For Linux 7.3: Some ~3x To ~5x Wins](https://daily.dev/posts/btrfs-ready-with-more-performance-improvements-for-linux-7-3-some-3x-to-5x-wins-b4x0ludw1) · Phoronix · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#performance](https://daily.dev/tags/performance) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-7-3-is-shaping-up-to-be-one-of-the-most-performance-focused-kernel-releases-in-years-y42pwcjuh)