Linux 3.17 To Linux 4.16 Kernel Benchmarks On Intel Gulftown & Haswell Hardware

CompileBench remains slower on Linux 4.16 since dipping from Linux 4.14.0 to 4.15.0 due to the Spectre/Meltdown mitigations. But in the grand scheme of things, at least the performance is still better off or comparable to some older kernel releases.

The synthetic PostMark test though is reporting its lowest performance levels with Linux 4.16, but fortunately PostMark doesn't map well to many modern I/O workloads.

Since the Linux 4.14.0 kernel or so, the boot time has been faster and remains that way with Linux 4.16.