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Linux runs better than Windows 11

by on28 October 2021


2022 could be the year of Linux on the Desktop

With Windows 11 out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, benchmarks are starting to compare the new OS with what is out there.

According to Phoronix, Linux benchmarks against Windows 11 Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system look rather good.

The Windows 11 performance was being compared to all of the latest prominent Linux distributions, including: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, Arch Linux (latest rolling), Fedora Workstation 35, Clear Linux 35150. All the testing was done on the same Intel Core i9 11900K test system at stock speeds (any frequency differences reported in the system table come down to how the information is exposed by the OS, i.e. base or turbo reporting) with 2 x 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, 2TB Corsair Force MP600 NVMe solid-state drive, and an AMD Radeon VII graphics card.

Each operating system was cleanly installed and then run at its OS default settings for seeing how the out-of-the-box OS performance compares for these five Linux distributions to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. But for the TLDR version.

Out of 44 tests run across all six operating systems, Windows 11 had just three wins on this Core i9 11900K system. Meanwhile Intel's own Clear Linux platform easily dominated with coming in first place 75 percent of the time followed by Fedora Workstation 35 in second place with first place finishes nine per cent of the time.

The geometric mean for all 44 tests showed Linux clearly in front of Windows 11 for this current-generation Intel platform. Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora were about 11 percent faster overall than Windows 11 Pro on this system. Meanwhile, Clear Linux was about 18 percent faster than Windows 11 and enjoyed about five percent better performance overall than the other Linux distributions.

Last modified on 28 October 2021
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