Ubuntu 21.04 significantly faster than windows 10 on Threadripper

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=windows10-ubuntu21-tr3990x&num=6

by marcodiego • 5 years ago

42 31 5 years ago

marcodiego6• 5 years ago

This is probably because Linux has a much finer tuned scheduler for multiples cores and multiples threads per-core. Linux dominates the HPC market for more than a decade and, as current workstations approach features of supercomputers from decades ago, the better scheduler begins to shine.

Also, considering how much Linux dominates on servers, it is very likely that IO latency or throughput, depending on the case, is top.

I don't expect windows to be better except for some memory heavy applications given it is mostly used on the desktop and has probably memory management features that are adequate for this use case.

It is a shame that for AAA games we still live with a virtual monopoly controlled by the option which is not the highest performant. Specially considering how gamers like to brag about their machines and setup to extract the last drop of performance. It would be interesting if gamers forced the industry to bow to the most advanced solution. Developers, HPC, servers and embedded people were successful doing exactly that.

MeinBlutIstBlau• 5 years ago

As long as Joe schmo with no time to figure that stuff out exists, it won't happen.

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

If your theory about Linux's historic use means it is a better fit for modern desktop CPUs, shouldn't the same be true for memory? I don't see why Windows should be better (according to the theory) as servers have also been the place of most memory intensive applications.

marcodiego6• 5 years ago

By memory-intensive I mean applications that have to do frequent allocations and de-allocations. This is very common on the desktop.

In HPC I think the more common case is a big allocation at program start and then lots of processing to de-allocate only after the number-crunching part is finished.

On servers it boils down to how quickly you can respond to network events and fire new processes.

tehbeard• 5 years ago

Forgive the roughness of this reply.. but....

When I want to play games, I want to click on heads till they're not heads anymore, or think with portals, or race around a city with friends.

Not trying to debug why pulse audio is having issues and refusing to send audio to the front jack, again.

Maybe this has changed of late, and I'm just burned by these previous "adventures", but video/audio always felt like a bit of an afterthought in Linux to me.

qalmakka3• 5 years ago

Pipewire is replacing PulseAudio and I can finally say, it works great. Pulse was a great idea for its time, but it was poorly written and it took 10 years for it to get to a point it didn't make you wish you could avoid using it.

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

While this might be true (neither saying it is or isn't) it is interesting that a lot of gamers will go to extreme lengths, both time and money-wise, for a few extra FPS but still most don't use the energy to switch to Linux. I wonder why.

marcodiego6• 5 years ago

When I want to play games, I want to click on heads till they're not heads anymore, or think with portals, or race around a city with friends.

I understand what you mean. Nevertheless, some gamers have the fame of being technically proficient power users who are willing to pay more and spend a lot of time just to get games to squeeze even the last drop of possible performance from their systems.

Today these gamers could be using a higher performant kernel if publishers were willing to fight the monopoly.

perakojotgenije• 5 years ago

Oh look, another "I've tried linux 25 years ago and some hardware didn't work and it sucked" post.

Forgive the roughness of this reply... but...

In the last 15 years every linux that I've installed on every desktop and laptop that I've tried worked perfectly out of the box. No sound issues, no network issues, no wifi issues, video card drives just work. And if you use more "user friendly" distros like linux mint you do not even need to use the command line, amd drivers are right there in the kernel, and you can install nvidia drivers right from the gui. And you can on click heads or you can think with portals or race around a city without ever needing to use terminal or to debug audio issues.

aseipp• 5 years ago

Developers, HPC, and hyperscalers have vast amounts of money to fund these investments, and are overall a relatively few number of companies. They did not come for free; Linux only supports those systems as well as it does due to decades of investment from the top players in those fields, and that investment created inertia and cost savings to appear. Sorry, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how resources are allocated to think anyone (who wasn't named Sun) was "forced" into accepting Linux as some superior option, rather than seeing the writing on the wall that Linux was going to dominate purely by virtue of its cheapness and the ability to hire for it (case in point, many people adopted Linux despite its objectively inferior storage solutions for many years until recently). Linux isn't a person, it can't choose anything. But people will choose Linux if a widget that was $1.50 is now $.50, and they can pocket the $1. Completely different scenarios.

The idea "Gamers" can do almost anything other than start shitfits online is some weird "individual responsibility" pipedream. "Gamers" can't even stop major studios from getting shuttered after giving them tons of money (successful sales for games) and at high praise. The problem is structural, not one individual consumer choices are going to fix.

marcodiego6• 5 years ago

Linux won the academia and hobbyists by being cheap. But more advanced unices like solaris (which had dtrace and zfs), irix and aix it won by being faster.

snicker7• 5 years ago

Nothing new or surprising. Anyone who regularly uses both systems knows about the Windows performance tax.

Most notable is the performance improvement of the recent Windows update. I wonder what happened.

RachelF• 5 years ago

However, looking at other Phoronix benchmarks, Windows beats Linux on Intel systems.

marcodiego6• 5 years ago

Considering https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=11900k-w... , Core i9 has only 8 cores, Threadripper has 64. The AMD processor also has also the 8x the number of threads compared to the intel one.

AFAIK, AMD has been faster than intel to tune the power governor on linux. Considering the benchmark shows no comparison on how much electricity the system is eating and is using default settings, it is possible that windows lead in this case can explained by the power governor still needing some updates. We'll have to wait newer kernels to be sure.

Dah00n5• 5 years ago

That's... quite the difference..

"If taking the geometric mean of all 79 benchmark results, Ubuntu 21.04 on this AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X workstation was 25% faster than Windows 10 for this set of workstation-minded benchmarks"

Ubuntu 21.04 significantly faster than windows 10 on Threadripper

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