Check x86-64 Microarchitecture Level on Linux

The x86-64 microarchitecture levels (x86-64-v2, x86-64-v3, x86-64-v4) are standardized feature sets defined collaboratively by Intel, AMD, Red Hat, and SUSE. These levels group CPU instruction set extensions into tiers, allowing software to target a consistent baseline for performance optimizations across different processors. This tutorial demonstrates how to check x86-64 microarchitecture level on Linux.

• x86-64-v2 - baseline enhancements beyond the original x86-64 (e.g., SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2).
• x86-64-v3 - adds AVX, AVX2, BMI1, BMI2, and other extensions.
• x86-64-v4 - includes AVX-512 and newer capabilities.

One practical way to inspect supported levels is by querying the dynamic loader, which reports hardware capability (hwcaps) directories used by the system:

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help

Example output:

Subdirectories of glibc-hwcaps directories, in priority order:
  x86-64-v4
  x86-64-v3 (supported, searched)
  x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)

The entries marked as "supported, searched" indicate microarchitecture levels that the system can utilize.