Intel Continues To Demonstrate The Importance Of Software Optimizations: Clear Linux + Xeon Max Benchmarks

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Continues To Demonstrate The Importance Of Software Optimizations: Clear Linux + Xeon Max Benchmarks

While the recently released Ubuntu 23.10 is bringing some performance improvements to Intel Xeon Max / Sapphire Rapids, Ubuntu Linux still isn't delivering the best possible out-of-the-box server performance. For that Intel continues to show the importance of software optimizations with the likes of their in-house Clear Linux platform as well as the likes of CentOS Stream having more sensible defaults. Here is a look at the Intel Xeon Max 9480 performance across Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 23.10, CentOS Stream 9, Fedora Server 39, and Clear Linux 40130.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/xeon-max-linux-software

[Volta]

Intel continues to demonstrate the importance of proper CPU governor. Schedutils is utter crap, but ditros using it are still faster than Windows. Just imagine how broken MS OS is.

[skeevy420]

Michael

All the charts contain CetnOS

[skeevy420]

Dammit, I just realized that CentOS is made up of two different Windows versions....CE and NT.

I feel like I should have noticed that 20 years ago.

[schmidtbag]

Intel continues to demonstrate the importance of proper CPU governor. Schedutils is utter crap, but ditros using it are still faster than Windows. Just imagine how broken MS OS is.

And, they demonstrate how much performance you can squeeze in if you make the most of your CPU's instructions.

[sophisticles]

Intel continues to demonstrate the importance of proper CPU governor. Schedutils is utter crap, but ditros using it are still faster than Windows. Just imagine how broken MS OS is.

Where do you see any Windows benchmarks in this article?

You may be suffering from Windows Derangement Syndrome.

[skeevy420]

Where do you see any Windows benchmarks in this article?

You may be suffering from Windows Derangement Syndrome.

I think anybody who uses that OS is deranged.

[guspitts]

Does anyone have actual experience of deploying Clear Linux on servers. We have large shared servers in an academic environment, used by students to run their research. These machines run Ubuntu and get upgraded every 2-4 years, using LTS (and overall do not require much maintenance).

Having more performance is enticing, but a rolling release doesn't seem ideal in that case. Although presumably servers are the target of Intel, not desktop. How well does it work? Is it a constant upgrade hell? Does it break often (including locally compiled software)? How is the availability of drivers (such as NVIDIA GPU drivers*) and software (e.g., pyTorch)? Anyone has given Clear Linux a try outside of benchmarks?

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* No need to start a discussion of the evil ways of NVIDIA. Whether I/we like it or not, it remains the path of least resistance at this point in time to get AI/ML done, and thru purchasing department.

[sophisticles]

Does anyone have actual experience of deploying Clear Linux on servers. We have large shared servers in an academic environment, used by students to run their research. These machines run Ubuntu and get upgraded every 2-4 years, using LTS (and overall do not require much maintenance).

Having more performance is enticing, but a rolling release doesn't seem ideal in that case. Although presumably servers are the target of Intel, not desktop. How well does it work? Is it a constant upgrade hell? Does it break often (including locally compiled software)? How is the availability of drivers (such as NVIDIA GPU drivers*) and software (e.g., pyTorch)? Anyone has given Clear Linux a try outside of benchmarks?

-----------
* No need to start a discussion of the evil ways of NVIDIA. Whether I/we like it or not, it remains the path of least resistance at this point in time to get AI/ML done, and thru purchasing department.

For a server, reliability and dependability is more important than raw performance, which is why Ubuntu Server is so popular.

Servers are like diesel pickup trucks, you value greater towing capacity more than greater acceleration and you value durability over style,

I would much rather have a slower server that has an uptime and availability of 99.5% over a server that is twice as fast but has an uptime and availability of 80%.

[kylew77]

Heck I wish they would let us use OSs as new as this. RHEL 8 is our primary RHEL, with a few RHEL 9 servers starting to come online. Ubuntu 20.04 is our LTS for Ubuntu, no 22.04 servers yet, and the other day I made a Debian server on newly released Debian 12 and got chewed out for not making it on Debian 10...