Squeezing Extra Performance Out Of The Intel Core i9 10900K With Clear Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Squeezing Extra Performance Out Of The Intel Core i9 10900K With Clear Linux

Besides disabling CPU security mitigations (not recommended if security is of importance), for those wanting to squeeze extra performance out of Intel CPUs like Comet Lake with the Core i9 10900K, loading Intel's performance-optimized Clear Linux is one such way. Here is a look at the current performance that can be gained out of using the latest rolling-release Clear Linux on the i9-10900K in comparison to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=29244

[edwaleni]

It would be interesting to see how Clear Linux performs on the new Zen2 4K models that just came out.

I am sure the vanilla install will work, and the tests will complete, but anything needing AMD-Vi or the IOMMU will not.

But I get it. Not their arch.

[kcrudup]

I've been building my kernel (and now Mesa and the libVA suite) with "-march=icelake-client -mtune=native -O2" for a while now. Is Clear Linux just built that way (vs. more-generic flags) or are there other, private improvements?

[Michael]

I've been building my kernel (and now Mesa and the libVA suite) with "-march=icelake-client -mtune=native -O2" for a while now. Is Clear Linux just built that way (vs. more-generic flags) or are there other, private improvements?

There are many extra patches as well as various optimizations like using PGO and FDO, etc.

[FPScholten]

Since you tested the Xanmod kernel, I've been running with it ever since, compiling it myself with optimizations for my hardware (Haswell 4700MQ based Thinkpad T540p) and it outperforms the standard Ubuntu kernel. Been wondering how it compares to Clear....

[angrypie]

Nice improvements. Too bad Clear Linux also squeezes more performance from AMD CPUs.

[lowflyer]

If we take this software-race for performance on one side and security on the other side to the logical conclusion, we end up with a completely software-defined processor where the value of security or performance (both are mutually exclusive) can be configured by a kernel commandline parameter. For example:

#SECURITY_PERF_PIVOT=1.0     # Maximum performance setting. Not compatible with SELinux
                             # and IPSec. Not recommended.
#SECURITY_PERF_PIVOT=0       # Maximum security setting. Not compatible with X11 or HPC.
                             # It is recommended to reduce the bandwith of your ethernet
                             # connection to below 300 bps to prevent cache line overflows.
SECURITY_PERF_PIVOT=0.6335   # Intel default value. AMD users can safely increase this
                             # value to 0.83