Major OS Showdown w/ Windows Tests Are Imminent

While this year we have already delivered a number of notable articles and benchmarks, right now we are on the heels of delivering our most extensive set of benchmarks yet. We are in the process of comparing the performance of Windows 7 x64, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and Mac OS X 10.6.3 (likely FreeBSD 8.0 and OpenSolaris 2010.03 too) across multiple systems. By early May the first of these numbers will be published.

For months we have been working on Windows support for the Phoronix Test Suite and after driving the initial support back in December in Germany, the second part of this native support upbringing is landing this week. This is coming a month after we announced Windows benchmarking is coming soon.

In fact, hitting Phoronix Global over the past 24 hours the first of our Windows benchmarks have been published (though they're not part of this forthcoming article series). So far it's mostly been OpenGL games being pushed up like Urban Terror and even Unigine Heaven.

There's a handful of test profiles already running nicely on Windows 7 via the Phoronix Test Suite, but many more are in the process of receiving Windows compatibility -- once the initial pts-core was in place for Windows, the process of bringing more test profiles over has become increasingly simple via our unique automated testing framework. Phoronix Test Suite 2.6 "Lyngen" is now set to run solidly on Linux, Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, Windows, and *BSD platforms.

Our first article out in May involving Windows will be a look at the OpenGL performance between Windows 7, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and Mac OS X 10.6.3. The *BSDs will be thrown in too if the Linux binaries end up running well on at least FreeBSD 8.0. This testing will consist of at least three systems (perhaps more) being used for good hardware coverage. As of right now though we have yet to receive an Apple system from AMD with ATI graphics, so our Mac OS X testing may be limited to Mac Minis with Intel and NVIDIA graphics.

Following this first gaming / OpenGL look across the operating system spectrum, we will have more benchmarks looking at the performance of Windows 7 to Linux on netbooks, workstations, and more. All of this is being handled in a fully automated and repeatable manner using the Phoronix Test Suite. We can assure you these Windows test will be especially interesting. Even our test suite was able to spot some interesting regressions in Mac OS X 10.6.3.

If you are interested in these forthcoming articles, be sure to read Notice More Articles This Week At Phoronix?