Linux vs. Windows Benchmark: Threadripper 2990WX vs. Core i9-7980XE Tested

[JaredTheDragon]

Calm down, everyone.

We saw the exact same thing with Win7 vs Linux vs Mac OSX back in the day, when Win7 emerged. Pretty significant decreases in render times on the same CPUs, favoring Linux/MacOSX. At least these days they didn't bother testing with OSX.

Why? Because they're using the DEFAULT settings in Win10, plain and simple. Just like we narrowed that gap on Win7 down to margin of error, we would do the same here with Win10.

You simply ditch Win10s affinity/priority mechanisms and go third party. Process Lasso and many similar TaskManager-replacers easily allow this behavior. Anyone using a renderfarm or working in CC should already be familiar with these - background apps that control priorities and core-affinities much better than the barebones Microsoft tools. Hell, I always turn off two cores for Maya so even when rendering a system is buttery-smooth. Only a fool would use every core for rendering and still try to use the computer for other purposes, even with 32 cores. The browser itself should have a few dedicated cores anyway.

The gap between Linux and Windows is a failure of Microsoft to give the user OPTIONS, and that's it. Easily bypassed in a very direct fashion.

 

[fadingfool]

I use both Win10 and Linux (Mint 19) at home and win 7 at work (fully locked down so can't change any of the settings - fairly common in a corporate environment). Linux (Mint with Cinnamon) is a much lighter weight OS and runs speedily on a core 2 quad with 4GB (recent full install with additional apps is only 9GB total - sits at around 0.6GB to 0.8GB used RAM) . The same cannot be said for Win10 - as such given the desire in CPU tests to remove bottle necks should not a Linux test suite be added to the benchmarks? C'mon Techspot a regular Linux test suite to remove the MS bottle neck would really help compare the raw CPU power between chips - both old and new (Linux runs on a lot more hardware than windows) .

 

[Mirek]

How do you square your written result: "The last chess benchmark we’re going to look at is Crafty and again we’re measuring performance in nodes per second. Interestingly, the Core i9-7980XE wins out here and saw the biggest performance uplift when moving to Linux, a 5% performance increase was seen opposed to just 3% for the 2990WX and this made the Intel CPU 12% faster overall."
....with the associated image that shows quite the opposite result: AMD CPU wins - Higher is Better ?
If the verbose is correct, then the image should read - Lower is Better - shouldn't it ?
Click to view the associated image http://bit.ly/2BwnKb2
Please, correct whichever is wrong.

 

[DelJo63]

Performing benchmarks is difficult - - it's not as simple as run suites x,z,y and reporting your results. It takes training and experience to make a good single system benchmark and running multiple system comparisons is fraught with pitfalls.

All hardware must be as similar as possible, unless the goal of the test is a specific hardware component -- even the memory chips need to be considered, both speed and timing factors. Disk drives should even be the same size/model from a single vendor. The paging system needs to be adjusted fairly -- allowing Windows to manage this BLOWS your benchmarks sky high when the pagefile automatically expands and becomes fragmented. Just how many reading this are aware of pagefile expansion?

Getting two systems configured "identically" is almost a joke and nay impossible to achieve, especially when attempting to compare totally disparagingly different architectures like Windows and Linux.

For a benchmark or performance test to be usable, the ENTIRE configuration must be documented for each system and at least included as an addendum or appendix to the report. Without that level of detail, you can only grin and conclude "well, maybe".

 

[GhostinShell]

Wow,

on the review/article;
decent lots of info to digest. keep up the good work, but I would like to see an update where windows and Linux is optimized, and or windows 2016 server added as some of the benchmarks are for server side workloads. and windows 10 is desktop.... a couple of things to call out... windows is a General OS,
which means the defaults are going to be more tame. also, which build of windows 10? and is it OEM or MS build? because it does matter. also, windows 10 by default is pretty heavy by design but is very easy to turn off which does effect performance. not really an optimization. just something to call out....

next just out to chime in on a few points that have been made above;

windows vs Linux...
who cares, I use both and macos as part of my job. use what ever you like. the best OS for you is the one you can use the best, and supports your workloads and workflows.... period.... its that simple. both windows and Linux can BOTH be optimized. and for folks complaining they cant find the control panel in windows 10 as a reason to switch is just shameful, MS has put in like 5 different ways to get to it. learn the OS your using. Windows 10 allows alot to be customized. and tons of stuff you can turn off, lots of articles around on the how. and MS forces updates by default because *******'s wont patch otherwise which effects the over all security ecosystem.. so they force you to fully patch on an automatic cycle... which you CAN change easily. (which folks in the thread have acknowledged)

MS has also, been updating windows to be more of a rolling release like Linux Arch, Macos os etc. especially windows 10, install once upgrade forever. sorta thing. which I am ok with. also, MS has been changing the architecture of windows for the better has time goes on. sticking on window 7 is just all bad from a security point of view, a lot of things has been updated. (if you like windows 7 workflow, you can update the shell to put the start menu back or just customize the start menu and or desktop/theme. not to hard.....

for Linux vs windows "shell" well, windows is not Linux.... windows has cmd, and powershell but you can also use perl, python ruby, vbscript just about whatever you want. also, windows 10 now has linux mode and you can use bash too. on linux it now has powershell, c#, etc so you can do some of the windowy stuff on linux if you want, thats why it doesnt matter...

for drivers... windows wins thats it, driver on linux suck yea its getting better but... they ALL run in kernel space, and **** tons of them are in the kernel by default. windows is moving to userland drivers, and security space that owns the kernel and userland. so a bad driver cant take down the system the kernel or security space can just restart the driver. way cleaner.....

thats enough for now

-GhostInShell

 

[GhostinShell]

Windows 10 is a fairly heavy OS. All of the graphical features are nice, however I find Linux more reliable and in many ways more intuitive for the power user. I manage several Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 servers, CentOS servers, as well as a variety of Windows servers and desktops.

In Windows 10, I find myself searching for basics like the control panel and command prompt frequently. In the end, I usually just pin all of these "essentials" to the start menu. Nothing is worse than Windows Server 2012 R2 though. The metro interface was at least justifiable in Windows 8 but how did MS imagine server admins using a touchscreen?

I have had a few Windows 10 machines become corrupted due to various forced updates. I typically just restore from a backup and find a workaround or perform a Windows system restore. More seriously, some "critical" Windows Server updates have failed in the recent past, costing serious loss of money and time. I've never experienced this type of corruption in Linux.

Ubuntu's command line experience is much better than Windows. Linux shell commands are simple and intuitive. Ubuntu server also ships with the incredible vi modal editor. Windows Powershell is a pain to use IMHO. It seems I am often fighting permissions battles.

Linux definitely carries a steeper learning curve, however I believe it's worth it for the power user. The only exception obviously is that many applications only run in Windows.

I manage 1000s of machines and dont see those issues. if an update borks a system, while it *can* be a a bad update thats actually pretty rare. its usually something on the system, that the update has a bad interaction with. and thats.... why.... you test updates in a production shop.... period full stop....

same with Linux, AIX, Mac anything same issue test updates... and dont go to far off the reservation... I have had production Linux workstations borked becuase of bad kernel updates and borks vmware. same is true everywhere.... test your updates....

thinking its an MS only issue is just plain silly.

 

[Langeston]

Windows 10 is a fairly heavy OS. All of the graphical features are nice, however I find Linux more reliable and in many ways more intuitive for the power user. I manage several Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 servers, CentOS servers, as well as a variety of Windows servers and desktops.

In Windows 10, I find myself searching for basics like the control panel and command prompt frequently. In the end, I usually just pin all of these "essentials" to the start menu. Nothing is worse than Windows Server 2012 R2 though. The metro interface was at least justifiable in Windows 8 but how did MS imagine server admins using a touchscreen?

I have had a few Windows 10 machines become corrupted due to various forced updates. I typically just restore from a backup and find a workaround or perform a Windows system restore. More seriously, some "critical" Windows Server updates have failed in the recent past, costing serious loss of money and time. I've never experienced this type of corruption in Linux.

Ubuntu's command line experience is much better than Windows. Linux shell commands are simple and intuitive. Ubuntu server also ships with the incredible vi modal editor. Windows Powershell is a pain to use IMHO. It seems I am often fighting permissions battles.

Linux definitely carries a steeper learning curve, however I believe it's worth it for the power user. The only exception obviously is that many applications only run in Windows.

Dallas,
Very well said. I don't necessarily agree with everything in your post, but the way you stated your case is exactly how topics like this should be approached.

I've never run into any of the problems you have, so obviously, at the end of the day, it all comes down to user preference. (I also don't typically require a CLI; my experience might be different if I spent a lot of time in it.)

As far as

In Windows 10, I find myself searching for basics like the control panel and command prompt frequently.

That probably just boils down to being unfamiliar with how Windows works. I ran into similar issues while using Linux.

For Control Panel: Start "CON" Enter. Or, as you said you could just pin it to the Start menu, pin it to the Taskbar, create a shortcut, etc. Personally, I pin it to the Taskbar as I use it a lot. One click takes me right to it.

For Command Prompt: Start+R "CMD" or Start "CMD" Enter. Or, again, you could just pin it to the Start menu, pin it to the Taskbar, create a shortcut, etc.

I don't think either is particularly difficult. Does Linux somehow do it better? (Honest question.)

I think that most people that have complaints about not being able to find things in Windows probably don't make use of the search feature. Usually, pressing the Start button and typing the first 2 or 3 letters of the program I want brings it right up. I can't see how it could get much simpler than that, to be honest. Is Linux more efficient in that regard? (Again, honest question.)

Anyways, good post. I appreciate the civility.

 

[Bp968]

Wrapping this one up we have to say, the few days we spent messing around with Linux were interesting, but ultimately made us more appreciative of Windows 10's desktop OS experience.

No **** you feel more comfortable in the desktop environment you used over 2 decades than the one you used less than a week.

I mean how can you think that forced OS upgrades that just close all your applications with unsaved data in it is a better user experience? Obviously because you're used to this ****ery of windows and you know how to handle it, but if it was brand new to you you would instantly recognize how insane that concept is. I intentionally keep my windows stock for work so I have a legitimate reason to complain to my employer about losing work progress because windows randomly decided it had to close all my applications to do updates.

You act like that's a daily occurrence. It's something you realistically encounter once every few months at the most and it takes seconds to restart a PC, you can also schedule them to take place once you’re done with work. Very very strange one that.

He's certainly venturing into to hyperbole with his statement but I cant disagree with the core of his argument. Im a gamer so windows is my OS sadly (I tried gaming on linux and it works, just not great yet). But try having a couple of PCs that are rarely turned on and see how much fun those forced updates are. My home theater PC was useless there for a 6-9 month period where the forced updates were coming in fairly often. Id turn it on to watch something and it would immediately start updating. We'd give up and watch on the prime TV stick. Then a spare laptop I had got rarely turned on. You'd go to turn it on to do something real fast and bam, update.

Thankfully they took so much flack from it forcing people out of their PC that now it asks and actually waits and listens to you.

Though I will say their not 100% there yet. Once updates are downloaded you have 3 options on restart. You can switch users, you can restart and update or power off and update. No "just restart". If your gaming with friends and need to reboot to fix an issue then the lack of a simple "restart" option sucks.

 

[Bp968]

You act like that's a daily occurrence. It's something you realistically encounter once every few months at the most and it takes seconds to restart a PC, you can also schedule them to take place once you’re done with work. Very very strange one that.

What exactly made me sound like it's a daily occurrence? It's a ~bimonthly occurrence.

I am not annoyed by having to restart my computer, I am annoyed that the DEFAULT setting in windows 10 is to randomly FORCEFULLY restart the computer without my consent.

Indeed I can adjust the behavior, I even specifically mentioned that I know how to change it but leave it at stock settings so I get to point out how bad the system is to my employer. I brought this up as an example to show if you wouldn't have >20 years of experience with windows ****ery you would be annoyed by such things just like you are annoyed by the Ubuntu (which desktop did you use? Gnome?) quirks now as you don't have the 20+ years of experience to quickly work around it.

Windows doesn't acknowledge other working patterns. I don't work "9 to 5" I work 3 days a week on that machine with 24h uptime as I am running a soft phone on there for customer emergency. But windows update requires at least 6h downtime a day.

As I said, it's easy to praise a system you have learned to work with for 20 years against one you haven't even worked with a single week.

Windows is garbage for a non-user-facing system. I have a VMware system and a Solaris system that have sat, untouched and unmolested for 10 years now and both have near 24/7 uptime and have never had any issues. Linux/unix/Solaris machines are so reliable its almost boring (almost).

 

[DelJo63]

Certainly gone far a field from the Benchmark topic ....

 

[tipstir]

Those at Microsoft already no the OS based on MSDOS kernel is slow already. They can revise it and open it up more to make OS run quicker. I've seen a lot of improvements since Windows 3.0. Windows 10 look at what we have not. LINUX kernel is a different animal along with it's Solus. But Linux isn't perfect either it can crash free and lockup. I run CentOS 7.x here. Even though Android OS uses Linux kernel code and so does Chrome OS these tend to be quicker. Microsoft needs to redo everything if you want it to be so super duper quick. They are want to dump ads and make Windows 10 Home so commercial like cash cow. They can't do what Apple does with it's IOS/MacOS. That's not perfect either. Good to see the dual but again most of here not running 64GB of DDR3/4. I am on 32GB of DDR3 on Windows 10 everything is Windows here except for a few test servers and tablets are Android. Playing around with Chrome OS stick 64-bit see how that goes. It's okay.

 

[Langeston]

Those at Microsoft already no the OS based on MSDOS kernel is slow already. They can revise it and open it up more to make OS run quicker. I've seen a lot of improvements since Windows 3.0. Windows 10 look at what we have not. LINUX kernel is a different animal along with it's Solus. But Linux isn't perfect either it can crash free and lockup. I run CentOS 7.x here. Even though Android OS uses Linux kernel code and so does Chrome OS these tend to be quicker. Microsoft needs to redo everything if you want it to be so super duper quick. They are want to dump ads and make Windows 10 Home so commercial like cash cow. They can't do what Apple does with it's IOS/MacOS. That's not perfect either. Good to see the dual but again most of here not running 64GB of DDR3/4. I am on 32GB of DDR3 on Windows 10 everything is Windows here except for a few test servers and tablets are Android. Playing around with Chrome OS stick 64-bit see how that goes. It's okay.

MS-DOS Kernel? Seriously? Windows hasn't used that for almost 2 decades. Come on, man.

 

[gamoniac]

Steve, Thanks for the interesting review. Mixing Windows and Linux on top of AMD and Intel would inherently invite a mixed reaction. I would suggest that you stick to OS vs OS, or CPU vs CPU, to be more objective. As someone who has used both OS'es as my primary PC in the past, I can say that Windows 10 is a UI-heavy OS; nobody serious would run production web sites on Windows 10, ever. Since Linux is a primarily (awesome) server OS, it would only be fair to compare it with Windows Server 2016 standard Core (without UI). To be fair, this would require quite a bit of research to compare applications apple to apple. I would suspect (purely conjuncture on my part) that Linux would win out, but not nearly as much as what you have here.

 

[Badvok]

I really don't like reviews that try to compare apples to oranges but I guess this is a problem that AMD have created by bundling multiple processors in one package to save on the cost of a larger die. I wonder whether Intel will answer with a return of the 'Slot' style multi-processor packaging.

 

[callmesissi]

You act like that's a daily occurrence. It's something you realistically encounter once every few months at the most and it takes seconds to restart a PC, you can also schedule them to take place once you’re done with work. Very very strange one that.

What exactly made me sound like it's a daily occurrence? It's a ~bimonthly occurrence.

I am not annoyed by having to restart my computer, I am annoyed that the DEFAULT setting in windows 10 is to randomly FORCEFULLY restart the computer without my consent.

Indeed I can adjust the behavior, I even specifically mentioned that I know how to change it but leave it at stock settings so I get to point out how bad the system is to my employer. I brought this up as an example to show if you wouldn't have >20 years of experience with windows ****ery you would be annoyed by such things just like you are annoyed by the Ubuntu (which desktop did you use? Gnome?) quirks now as you don't have the 20+ years of experience to quickly work around it.

Windows doesn't acknowledge other working patterns. I don't work "9 to 5" I work 3 days a week on that machine with 24h uptime as I am running a soft phone on there for customer emergency. But windows update requires at least 6h downtime a day.

As I said, it's easy to praise a system you have learned to work with for 20 years against one you haven't even worked with a single week.

totally agree with you. I HATE windows 10 auto restart, has been a nightmare and currently I am using linux - hasnt been easy the switch - but to my

Cool comparison, but it personally does me absolutely no good. How about for the majority of the population which still uses Win7? I have no plans in the future to ever use Win10, nor any of my friends/family on supporting Win10.

windows 7 is EOL in just one more year. Yes windows 7 is great, but you dont much time left, you know

 

[ShagnWagn]

totally agree with you. I HATE windows 10 auto restart, has been a nightmare and currently I am using linux - hasnt been easy the switch - but to my
windows 7 is EOL in just one more year. Yes windows 7 is great, but you dont much time left, you know

Don't much time left? No time left for what?
If Win7 absolutely will not run new software I can't live without (I will keep running my old), then I will switch to Linux if I have to. If it won't run on that, then I guess life will continue on.
If Microsoft chooses to quit sending out security updates, then I guess every machine I know of will be turned into a bot farm. I presume hackers then will use them to facilitate attacks on Win10 machines.

 

[joanindo]

Cool comparison, but it personally does me absolutely no good. How about for the majority of the population which still uses Win7? I have no plans in the future to ever use Win10, nor any of my friends/family on supporting Win10.

You can wait till next year when Windows 10 LTSB release a support for new CPUs. If you like Windows 7, the LTSB edition is the closest one to Windows 7.

 

[WilliamG]

Microsoft has 2 systems made to manage multiple cores and they are;

Windows Server 2016/2019
Windows 10 WorkStation

And in addition, Microsoft needs to release an update NOT STILL READY to better handle this new CPU.

It was exactly the same thing in the launch of AMD R7 1700x. After a few months, Windows 10 received the Update that improved the use of cores and performance in software by up to 30%.

The test is broken.

 

[drownthepoor]

p.s has anyone gotten Dead By Daylight to run on linux? thats my main game and if anyone has LMK and I'll swipe right now lol

GAMING ON LINUX - - now that IS ROTFL. That system was NEVER intended to be an end-user desktop in the first place --- ROTFL again and again

Wow man, idk if you realize how far you are from being familiar with "that system".
First off, Linux was ONLY intended to be used by the END-USER, on a Personal Computer. This was during a time when graphical user environments were "gimmicky" to computer users.
Linux achieved major success everywhere but on the PC, simply because it is extremely powerful, yet it's a professional-grade system for FREE. All of Google's internal software runs on Linux, all of their development tools on Linux desktops...

Now the gaming part, I'm not sure you realize that Steam is available for Linux, as well as thousands of games, plenty of them being triple-A titles. Such as Metro:2033 and Metro:Lats-Light Redux, which I played originally on Windows, and now play on Linux. I have better FPS by far with Linux, than Windows on identical hardware. This is not always the case, but it's often enough to see advantages.

I implore you to try Linux, and see what you think. I've only used Linux since 2014, but since I started I very rarely need Windows.

 

[mrjgriffin]

Microsoft has 2 systems made to manage multiple cores and they are;

Windows Server 2016/2019
Windows 10 WorkStation

And in addition, Microsoft needs to release an update NOT STILL READY to better handle this new CPU.

It was exactly the same thing in the launch of AMD R7 1700x. After a few months, Windows 10 received the Update that improved the use of cores and performance in software by up to 30%.

The test is broken.

a few months lol......yet they had a much larger headroom to make this patch im sure.

 

[thews86]

I've been saying this for many years: If gaming on Linux can be equal or better to that on Windows I will switch. I hate Microsoft.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I don't get your conclusion that it made you more appreiative of Windows. Is it because Windows gives you more time to drink your coffee while you are waiting for your job to complete? In almost every example you gave Linux kicked the snot out of Windows on both processors. It's not surprising that Linux is so much better on massively parallel programs, every supercomputer runs on Linux so there have been decades of optimizations done on Linux that havent been done on Windows which is primarily a desktop OS.

They also weren't applications content creators use.
Reading is hard....

 

[meric]

p.s has anyone gotten Dead By Daylight to run on linux? thats my main game and if anyone has LMK and I'll swipe right now lol

GAMING ON LINUX - - now that IS ROTFL. That system was NEVER intended to be an end-user desktop in the first place --- ROTFL again and again

Wow man, idk if you realize how far you are from being familiar with "that system".
First off, Linux was ONLY intended to be used by the END-USER, on a Personal Computer. This was during a time when graphical user environments were "gimmicky" to computer users.
Linux achieved major success everywhere but on the PC, simply because it is extremely powerful, yet it's a professional-grade system for FREE. All of Google's internal software runs on Linux, all of their development tools on Linux desktops...

Now the gaming part, I'm not sure you realize that Steam is available for Linux, as well as thousands of games, plenty of them being triple-A titles. Such as Metro:2033 and Metro:Lats-Light Redux, which I played originally on Windows, and now play on Linux. I have better FPS by far with Linux, than Windows on identical hardware. This is not always the case, but it's often enough to see advantages.

I implore you to try Linux, and see what you think. I've only used Linux since 2014, but since I started I very rarely need Windows.

Linux needs some more juice to be viable for simple desktop users. I had experience with many different linux distros, many of them ended with disappointment. For example I could never manage to get rid of the screen stuttering issue in any distro. All my attempts ended with a system crash. In my last experience with Linux Mint (Cinnamon) I could not even run the OS outside of software mode due to it not recognising my graphics card. Now, perhaps there are ways to fix these issues but it would be too hard for a home user with no coding experience to apply these practices. Sure, there are countless forums about how to fix certain issues in Linux but it's hard to decide if these solutions are suitable for my specific hardware combination. Average desktop user needs something that requires little to no tinkering. At current state Linux can be confusing for an average Windows user.

 

[Amos Batto]

"Wrapping this one up we have to say, the few days we spent messing around with Linux were interesting, but ultimately made us more appreciative of Windows 10's desktop OS experience."

I really wish that tech reviewers would stop writing about the Linux desktop in the same way as the Windows or OS X desktop, because there is no one Linux desktop. There is the GNOME 3 Shell, Unity, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, Mate, LXDE, Evolution, and about 20 more that I have never tried. Since this review was done on Ubuntu LTS 18.04, they probably used GNOME 3 Shell which is its default desktop environment. In my opinion, GNOME 3 Shell is one of the worst, and many other Linux users users agree with me, which is why so many long-time Ubuntu users switched to Mint which uses Cinnamon by default or Debian which makes it very easy to choose your favorite desktop environment when installing.

Here is how I would rank desktop environments:
1. Cinnamon
2. Windows 7 / Windows 8 & 10 in Classic View
3. Mate
4. KDE
5. Windows XP
6. Mac OS X
7. XFCE
8. LXDE
9. GNOME 3 Shell
10. Unity
11. Windows 10 in Metro UI
12. Windows 8 in Metro UI

I think that the search box in Windows 7 is the best I have encountered, but Windows 7 is not very configurable, so I would place Cinnamon as the best because it is extremely configurable and has a search box, but it is only able to find items in its menus.

I suspect that this reviewer has configured Windows 10 to use the Classic View with the traditional Start menu and task bar, since most power users do that, which is why he thinks the Windows desktop environment is far superior, but if he compared the default Windows 10 in Metro UI to Cinnamon, he would have a totally different opinion.

 

[Gomez Addams]

I know you stated you left windows in its stock configuration but there is one setting that is very, very important for testing multi-tasking applications. It can be found in the control panel -> system properties -> advanced -> performance options -> advanced. The option is to adjust best performance for background services instead of programs. This gives more balanced priority to all threads instead of only the foreground application. I am a developer of an app that is heavily threaded and this setting makes a huge difference for me. It is easily measurable and I saw an almost 100% improvement with it. If you did not set this then I think you will find a improvement in performance with it set.