Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 19.10 vs. Clear Linux vs. Debian 10.1 Benchmarks On An Intel Core i9

[steven36]

Earlier this week I provided some fresh Windows vs. Linux web browser benchmarks for both Firefox and Chrome. For those curious how the current Windows 10 vs. Linux performance is for other workloads, here is a fresh look across a variety of software applications and while testing the near-final Ubuntu 19.10, Intel's rolling-release Clear Linux, and Debian 10.1 while running off an Intel Core i9 HEDT platform.

 

 

Ahead of all our autumn 2019 Linux distribution update benchmarks, this article is a fresh look at the Microsoft Windows 10 Pro x64 performance compared to these popular Linux distributions. Particularly with Debian 10 and Clear Linux, they tend to be the fastest Linux distributions we routinely benchmark at Phoronix while Ubuntu is included due to its popularity.

 

These four operating systems were all tested on the same Intel Core i9 7980XE + 4 x 4GB DDR4-3200 memory + NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X + Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe SSD system with the i9-7980XE being the newest Intel HEDT platform I have available for testing at the moment.

 

A range of benchmarks were carried out on the four operating systems from NVIDIA graphics/compute tests through various applications. All of the benchmarking on Windows and Linux was automated in a reproducible manner using the Phoronix Test Suite.

 

Comparing the NVIDIA graphics/compute performance between Windows and Linux remains one of the most boring comparisons... Simply as when using the latest binary drivers from NVIDIA, the performance for years now has been on-par between Windows and Linux thanks to their largely shared code-base. So no real surprises from these results. The only differences tend to come for gaming where the quality of the game port to Linux ends up making a large difference or when needing to run through SteamPlay/Wine. For those interested in gaming results, those cross-OS numbers will come in their own article with that not being the focus of today's more HEDT focused testing.

 

Golang's HTTP performance was actually the fastest on Windows but the Microsoft OS lost out in the other benchmarks of this popular Google-developed programming language.

 

Where Intel's Clear Linux platform begins kicking into high gear is with the Java benchmarks where it tends to dominate over other Linux distributions as well as Windows 10 thanks to Intel OTC's relentless tuning. Debian 10.1 did pick up a few wins in the Java tests.

 

Intel's Embree ray-tracing kernels on the Core i9 7980XE saw similar performance roughly between Windows and Linux. To some surprise, Intel's own Clear Linux wasn't the fastest with Embree but Debian 10.1 tended to carry a lead.

 

While with Intel's SVT-AV1 video encoder, Clear Linux returned to the front.

 

Debian did pull out another upset in the Intel SVT-HEVC test.

 

LuxCoreRender on the CPU continues being faster on Linux than Windows.

 

7-Zip performs similarly between Windows and Linux with the Intel Core i9 system while the more Linux-focused XZ and Zstd implementations are faster with Linux.

 

Clear Linux led in the audio encode benchmarks.

 

Strawberry Perl on Windows remains much slower than Perl as found on the Linux

 

The proprietary V-RAY renderer on the CPU saw Windows 10 performing well and just behind Debian 10.1.

 

The proprietary IndigoBench was also the fastest on Debian 10.1 while Windows was performing similar to Ubuntu 19.10 in this benchmark.

 

Debian 10.1 was also leading in the Blender and Appleseed renderer benchmarks.

 

When looking at the Chrome performance across the operating systems, it was a battle between Clear Linux and Windows 10 for the best web browsing performance.

 

Git remains much slower on Windows than Linux.

 

Perhaps most surprising from this testing was how well Debian 10.1 was performing on this Intel Core i9 7980XE. Debian 10 managed to lead in half the benchmarks carried out, normally where Clear Linux picks up the most victories by far. Ubuntu 19.10 didn't capture any first place finishes while Clear Linux came in first 38% of the time and Windows 10 just 11% of the 44 benchmarks carried out.

 

On a geometric mean basis, Clear Linux still delivered the best perform in coming out 6% faster than Debian or 21% compared to Microsoft Windows 10. Ubuntu 19.10 as the slowest of the Linux distributions benchmarked on this system saw just 7% better performance than Windows 10.

 

Source

[stylemessiah2]

No surprises on Ubuntu being the slowest linux....been pointing this out for years, and being flamed for it by Ubuntu fanboys

 

As i always say, want a fast usable general Linux, use Mint...

 

Want better...full, proper Debian...always

 

Having said that, im curious and going to give Clear Linux Desktop a go...

[Sylence]

Linux is only good for servers and the version of it without UI.

Windows is the best for Desktop computers, be it in businesses, companies, homes, schools, everywhere.

 

Linux with UI is a joke. period

[mp68terr]

2 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

Having said that, im curious and going to give Clear Linux Desktop a go...

First time to hear about Clear Linux. Please let us know what you think about this distro after the trial.

[steven36]

5 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

As i always say, want a fast usable general Linux, use Mint...

 

That's a oxymoron Linux Mint is just Ubuntu with a cinnamon UI it's boated like Gnome unless you use there Debian spin it's just Ubuntu and  what use is that? Debian has Cinnamon too   .XFCE  and Mate  Ubuntu and Debian have it too so there no benefit of using those really. Only thing Mint is useful for is if you want  Ubuntu  that comes with the Cinnamon DE already installed.

 

5 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

No surprises on Ubuntu being the slowest linux.

Test were done on there flagship DE Gnome  witch runs slowest on Ubuntu  every since  they drooped Unity DE that is a optimized  fork of gnome for Ubuntu when they went  back to Gnome they had to start over and it's been heavily modified to look the way  Ubuntu  wants it to look and that slows Gnome down more,  for testing to be fair against Debian with Gnome you would have to run Ubuntu in a  session of Vanilla Gnome like Debian has.. There are many different DEs for Ubuntu and each one will give different testing results. On top of that there is option to do a minimal install and install just the programs you want and without the bloat . Something Debian and Mint dont have. 

 

There are caveats with Clear Linux as well . It looks dated it's built from scratch so it has no DEs  to chose from  what you see is what you get . It dont have as much software as other Distros . And it is only optimized for Intel processors  because    its made by Intel i would not recommend it to a AMD  user . And testing with Clear Linux want never be fair on Intel  processors against Gnome because they use a fork of Gnome they made that's been optimized for Intel processors.

[lordnsane]

8 hours ago, Sylence said:

Linux is only good for servers and the version of it without UI.

Windows is the best for Desktop computers, be it in businesses, companies, homes, schools, everywhere.

 

Linux with UI is a joke. period

 

Seems like you haven't used linux much, or doesn't know how linux's DEs work.

The thing I see from this article:

• Linux is leading in most of the benchmarks
• You are actually paying for a slower OS, whereas the faster OS is free.
• Not for most of the people, but if you are ready to spend some time with linux environment setup, you can literally build your own Linux OS faster than most of the commercial distros available, just include the packages you need.
  • Or for many, just use arch and build from there.
• This is when Windows has decades of dedicated developers building softwares for the platform, and this is where this stupid OS stands after so much resources put into it. 😂

[stylemessiah2]

15 hours ago, steven36 said:

That's a oxymoron Linux Mint is just Ubuntu with a cinnamon UI it's boated like Gnome unless you use there Debian spin it's just Ubuntu and  what use is that? Debian has Cinnamon too   .XFCE  and Mate  Ubuntu and Debian have it too so there no benefit of using those really. Only thing Mint is useful for is if you want  Ubuntu  that comes with the Cinnamon DE already installed.

 

Test were done on there flagship DE Gnome  witch runs slowest on Ubuntu  every since  they drooped Unity DE that is a optimized  fork of gnome for Ubuntu when they went  back to Gnome they had to start over and it's been heavily modified to look the way  Ubuntu  wants it to look and that slows Gnome down more,  for testing to be fair against Debian with Gnome you would have to run Ubuntu in a  session of Vanilla Gnome like Debian has.. There are many different DEs for Ubuntu and each one will give different testing results. On top of that there is option to do a minimal install and install just the programs you want and without the bloat . Something Debian and Mint dont have. 

 

There are caveats with Clear Linux as well . It looks dated it's built from scratch so it has no DEs  to chose from  what you see is what you get . It dont have as much software as other Distros . And it is only optimized for Intel processors  because    its made by Intel i would not recommend it to a AMD  user . And testing with Clear Linux want never be fair on Intel  processors against Gnome because they use a fork of Gnome they made that's been optimized for Intel processors.

 

I am fully aware its an oxymoron as Mint is based on Ubuntu, but its done right, and is noticeably faster....

 

I am merely saying for those whose first instinct is to go for Ubuntu to skip it and go for Mint, its as accessible for a new user, but faster and less kludgy

 

Clear Linux supports flatpacks, which is where the trend seems to be heading these days, so software availability isnt an issue.....

 

(not slightly off topic, because you went there first) Who in their right mind buys an AMD processor when theres decades of data showing theyre inferior and AMD have been caught so many times falling behind and fudging their performance  numbers (literally every release you see the glossy PC mags spout AMD marketing nonsense, and then their CPU's are released and disappoint, times 20 years, its so forecastable its safer than forecasting the weather) ...even as recently as last year they were augth alterign BIOS's in tets rigs they sent to reviewers to make their CPU's look like they were on a par with Intel.....i have never owned an AMD based box, ever, ive worked on enough in 20 years though to inform that opinion....Intel or just dont bother.

[Sylence]

12 hours ago, lordnsane said:

 

Seems like you haven't used linux much, or doesn't know how linux's DEs work.

The thing I see from this article:

• Linux is leading in most of the benchmarks
• You are actually paying for a slower OS, whereas the faster OS is free.
• Not for most of the people, but if you are ready to spend some time with linux environment setup, you can literally build your own Linux OS faster than most of the commercial distros available, just include the packages you need.
  • Or for many, just use arch and build from there.
• This is when Windows has decades of dedicated developers building softwares for the platform, and this is where this stupid OS stands after so much resources put into it. 😂

 

Linux had even more time to develop proper software for the OS to be lucrative for people but they failed.

faster OS means nothing if it can't be used by everyone..

I've used Linux enough to say that.

[steven36]

8 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

I am fully aware its an oxymoron as Mint is based on Ubuntu, but its done right, and is noticeably faster....

 

I am merely saying for those whose first instinct is to go for Ubuntu to skip it and go for Mint, its as accessible for a new user, but faster and less kludgy

 

I  disagree its done right because it's ran by a 2 man show  and i had many Cinnamon bugs  and I started out on Linux Mint  and even beta tested it back in my distro hoping days.

 

Only reason Linux Mint is lighter is because the  DE it uses but you can pick a flavor of Ubuntu that is lighter than any thing Linux Mint Offers and do a minimal install and it want be bloated at all  . one of the reasons I dont like Linux Mint it don't have the minimal install so it comes full of software i don't use or want. Witch is fine if you don't mind the maintainer choosing your software for you or if your a noob that don't know much about Linux but i been using Linux long enough i know how install my own packages. Lighter dont always mean better for Entertainment  Apps, i always found lighter DEs to have more problems with Screen Tearing than the more heavy ones do. Only lighter will help if you want get work done faster with production apps . So it just depends on what you use your OS for.

 

 

Mint looks more like Windows (albeit going back to Vista rather than the more refined Windows 10), while Ubuntu will be more familiar to Mac OS X users.

Back when i 1st started  using Linux there was a lot more reasons to use Mint  than it is today like it came with codecs already installed ( witch is no longer the case for some years now it's just like Ubuntu you have  to check a box when installing  it to install the codecs or install them after you install it your choice .)  There use to be no way to move the panel down to the bottom like it is on Windows  in Ubuntu unless you  modified  the DE like Clem did who maintains Linux Mint . ( This is no longer the case in Ubuntu for some years now you can move the panel to anywhere you want. )

 

Some of the bad security  practices  at Linux Mint  they have turn me off , like holding back Ubuntu LTS security and quality  updates so it would not cause bugs in there built form scratch Cinnamon DE because it's plagued with bugs due to the lack of man power they have to maintain it  when LTS is not bleeding edge no way .( It was not tell recently they changed the update manger were  you could turn all the updates on from Ubuntu  on ,  but by default they still practice bad security hygiene witch would effect noobs that don't know nothing about Linux more than it would than more experience users who are aware .) If  Linux mint want to get all the bugs out of there DE  they need to join Ubuntu witch is owned by a big company and become and official flavor  so they will get the resources and devs they need. Tell they do i want use it again.

 

8 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

Clear Linux supports flatpacks, which is where the trend seems to be heading these days, so software availability isnt an issue....

Flatpacs , Appimage and snaps are available on all distros using apps in a container is not as fast as using native linux apps so i only use them as a last resort.like  if the app maintainer is a noob and don't know how to build native packages and only provides them in a container  .

 

8 hours ago, stylemessiah2 said:

(not slightly off topic, because you went there first) Who in their right mind buys an AMD processor when theres decades of data showing theyre inferior and AMD have been caught so many times falling behind and fudging their performance  numbers (literally every release you see the glossy PC mags spout AMD marketing nonsense, and then their CPU's are released and disappoint, times 20 years, its so forecastable its safer than forecasting the weather) ...even as recently as last year they were augth alterign BIOS's in tets rigs they sent to reviewers to make their CPU's look like they were on a par with Intel.....i have never owned an AMD based box, ever, ive worked on enough in 20 years though to inform that opinion....Intel or just dont bother.

That was true for about 12 years but in 2019 its not anymore after all the side-channel attacks found in Intel due to security updates Intel hardware has took a big performance hit. if they would of made there stuff better to begin with and  not been using shortcuts it would never happened now AMD is 30% ahead of Intel in the CPU market .  In recent years AMD has  been good to Linux and ported there drivers to open source like Intel already had done . NVIDIA is the only stain left on Linux that still wants to use close source graphics  drivers .