diff --git a/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.h b/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.h
--- a/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.h
+++ b/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.h
@@ -64,6 +64,8 @@
 /// on SSA use-def chains starting from function operands that are annotated
 /// with the 'inplaceable' attribute.
 std::unique_ptr<Pass> createLinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferizePass();
+std::unique_ptr<Pass>
+createLinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferizePass(bool useLinalgCopy);
 
 /// Create a pass to convert Linalg operations which work on tensors to use
 /// buffers instead.
diff --git a/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.td b/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.td
--- a/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.td
+++ b/mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Linalg/Passes.td
@@ -52,6 +52,9 @@
     Option<"useAlloca", "use-alloca", "bool",
            /*default=*/"false",
            "Use stack allocations for memrefs (for testing purposes only)">,
+    Option<"useLinalgCopy", "use-linalg-copy", "bool",
+           /*default=*/"false",
+           "Use a copy operation implemented as a Linalg op.">,
     Option<"analysisFuzzerSeed", "analysis-fuzzer-seed", "unsigned",
            /*default=*/"0",
            "Analyze ops in random order with a given seed (fuzzer)">,
diff --git a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ComprehensiveBufferizePass.cpp b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ComprehensiveBufferizePass.cpp
--- a/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ComprehensiveBufferizePass.cpp
+++ b/mlir/lib/Dialect/Linalg/Transforms/ComprehensiveBufferizePass.cpp
@@ -39,6 +39,10 @@
   LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize(
       const LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize &p) = default;
 
+  LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize(bool linalgCopy) {
+    this->useLinalgCopy = linalgCopy;
+  }
+
   void runOnOperation() override;
 
   void getDependentDialects(DialectRegistry &registry) const override {
@@ -74,6 +78,32 @@
   return allocated;
 }
 
+/// Create a linalg::GenericOp version of an n-D copy that can further tile,
+/// lower to loops or vectorize, unlike the current implementation of
+/// memref::CopyOp.
+/// Do not depend on linalg::CopyOp that is getting deprecated.
+static LogicalResult createLinalgCopyOp(OpBuilder &b, Location loc, Value from,
+                                        Value to) {
+  auto memrefTypeFrom = from.getType().cast<MemRefType>();
+  auto memrefTypeTo = to.getType().cast<MemRefType>();
+  if (!memrefTypeFrom || !memrefTypeTo ||
+      memrefTypeFrom.getRank() != memrefTypeTo.getRank())
+    return failure();
+  AffineMap id =
+      AffineMap::getMultiDimIdentityMap(memrefTypeTo.getRank(), b.getContext());
+  SmallVector<StringRef> iteratorTypes(memrefTypeTo.getRank(),
+                                       getParallelIteratorTypeName());
+  b.create<linalg::GenericOp>(loc,
+                              /*inputs=*/from,
+                              /*outputs=*/to,
+                              /*indexingMaps=*/llvm::makeArrayRef({id, id}),
+                              /*iteratorTypes=*/iteratorTypes,
+                              [](OpBuilder &b, Location loc, ValueRange args) {
+                                b.create<linalg::YieldOp>(loc, args.front());
+                              });
+  return success();
+}
+
 void LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize::runOnOperation() {
   auto options = std::make_unique<AnalysisBufferizationOptions>();
   if (useAlloca) {
@@ -82,13 +112,17 @@
       return success();
     };
   }
+  // TODO: atm memref::CopyOp can be 200x slower than linalg::GenericOp.
+  // Once this perf bug is fixed more systematically, we can revisit.
+  if (useLinalgCopy)
+    options->memCpyFn = createLinalgCopyOp;
 
   options->allowReturnMemref = allowReturnMemref;
   options->allowUnknownOps = allowUnknownOps;
   options->analysisFuzzerSeed = analysisFuzzerSeed;
-  options->testAnalysisOnly = testAnalysisOnly;
-  options->printConflicts = printConflicts;
   options->createDeallocs = createDeallocs;
+  options->printConflicts = printConflicts;
+  options->testAnalysisOnly = testAnalysisOnly;
 
   // Enable InitTensorOp elimination.
   if (initTensorElimination) {
@@ -120,3 +154,8 @@
 std::unique_ptr<Pass> mlir::createLinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferizePass() {
   return std::make_unique<LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize>();
 }
+
+std::unique_ptr<Pass>
+mlir::createLinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferizePass(bool useLinalgCopy) {
+  return std::make_unique<LinalgComprehensiveModuleBufferize>(useLinalgCopy);
+}