Windows 11 22H2 can't keep up with Linux 6.0 and Ubuntu 22.10 on AMD Ryzen 7950X

The last month or so has been pretty eventful when it comes to product launches. Among them, some of the biggest highlights have been the release of the Windows 11 version 2022 (22H2) feature update and AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 CPUs. As such, Phoronix decided to take the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X for a ride on the new Windows 11 22H2 update and compare it against other Linux-based distros.

The test is a follow up to the previous result where Windows 11 21H2 was compared against Ubuntu on a Ryzen 5800X3D platform. In that, Ubuntu came out on top by a fair margin and today's test was meant to evaluate how the two rival OSs are shaping up for the next gen on new hardware, albeit without the 3D V-cache. The comparison this time is against Linux 6.0 kernel and Ubuntu 21.10, and although it's a closer fight, overall, Linux has once again managed to topple Windows 11.

First up, we have a couple of Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based DaCapo benchmarks and Windows 11 22H2 is completely obliterated by Linux in the Tradesoap test.

Up next, in the Kvazaar HEVC video encoding test, Windows 11 22H2 and Linux 6.0 trade blows. In case you are wondering, the "perf" mode in the graphs indicate the use of AMD's optimized P-state performance governor configuration, which is always faster than the default setup.

Moving on, we have AV1 encoding (on the left) and rendering performance (on the right). While Windows 11 22H2 shows great encoding prowess in AV1 as well as with HEVC in the previous test, the rendering performance is pretty terrible compared to Linux. Since rendering is an all-core multi-threaded workload, it looks like Linux is maybe utilizing the 7950X's resources better than Windows can.

Next up, we have a path tracing benchmark where the numbers are closer except for the Linux 6.0 config in "perf" mode. Overall it's a tie if you exclude that. Up next, in the Zstd compression test, Windows 11 22H2 manages to beat Linux. Another test where Windows 11 22H2 shines bright is in the Selenium Chromium benchmark.

Finally we have the geometric mean of all 190 test results. Overall, Linux 6.0 on Ubuntu 22.10 has a slight performance advantage over Microsoft's OS, and the lead is especially pronounced in "perf" mode.

These are just a handful of benchmarks which show the biggest performance differentials. You can find the full results on Phoronix's website, here.

Windows 11 22H2 can't keep up with Linux 6.0 and Ubuntu 22.10 on AMD Ryzen 7950X