Ubuntu, Kubuntu, & Xubuntu Benchmarks

With Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu each deploying a different desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, and Xfce respectively), how do each of these distributions compare performance-wise? We have taken two systems -- one with dual Intel Clovertown processors and the other an AMD Sempron -- and tested out each of these distributions in some of our commonly used Linux benchmarks to see how the performance truly stacks up. In this article we will be presenting part one of our results.

In part one of this article we are comparing Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu using some common desktop benchmarks here at Phoronix; these tests consist of gzip compression, LAME compilation, and LAME encoding. The next part of this article will look at the Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu performance in a gaming environment with a variety of open-source and closed-source games. For this article we had used Herd 4 of Feisty Fawn with all three *buntu versions. For those that may be new to the Linux or Ubuntu world, all three distributions are essentially the same, except Ubuntu uses GNOME as the default desktop environment where as Kubuntu uses KDE and Xubuntu uses Xfce.

The two testing systems we had used for this Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu performance showdown were to represent two different classifications; the first system was what most people would call a not-really-practical-and-too-much-for-my-wallet system while the second system was designed to represent a much more mainstream system. The first system was a dual Intel Xeon E5320 Quad-Core Clovertown setup with a Tyan Tempest i5000XT and eight sticks of DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM. An ATI Radeon X1950PRO also powered this system. The second system on the other hand was a modest AMD Socket AM2 Sempron processor with 1GB of DDR2 memory, an IDE drive, and integrated GeForce 6150 graphics. This system is actually the previously reviewed LIX Systems LX8100-AM2BB-M2NPV. Below is the complete rundown of hardware and software used during the testing process.