Workstation Benchmarks: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu Linux

The first test to be run was SPECViewPerf 10.0 with the 3dsmax-04 view-set. With this test that is modeled after the software formerly known as 3D Studio MAX, Windows 7 Professional was able to outperform Ubuntu 10.04 LTS by about 14%.

With the CATIA test, however, the performance between these two operating systems was effectively the same. When it comes to the graphics drivers on each operating system, for the most part NVIDIA's binary graphics driver is shared across all supported platforms (Linux, Windows, BSD, Solaris/OpenSolaris) so there should not be too many differences at the driver-level.

It was also a narrow escape with EnSight, which was 3% faster under Windows 7 while with test results on the Windows 7 side only had a standard deviation of 0.1% and on the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS side it was at just over 1%.