Benchmarking 11 Linux Distributions Across Dozens Of Workloads On The Intel Core i9 10980XE
If opting for a high-end desktop/workstation like the Intel Core i9 10980XE and even for smaller systems, your choice of Linux distribution can be a big factor in the performance potential out of the system. In benchmarking eleven modern Linux distributions across dozens of benchmarks, the performance difference can be more than 30% for the out-of-the-box Linux performance. Benchmarked this round on the i9-10980XE were multiple versions of CentOS, Clear Linux, Debian, Fedora Workstation, Manjaro, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Solus, and Ubuntu.
The newly-released Cascadelake-X Core i9 10980XE was used for this round of benchmarking with the GIGABYTE X299X DESIGNARE 10GB motherboard, which has been working out well on all of the Linux distributions tested. The system had 4 x 8GB DDR4-3200 memory, Samsung 970 PRO 512GB NVMe SSD, and Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics. The eleven Linux distributions tested were:
- CentOS 7
- CentOS 8
- CentOS Stream
- Clear Linux 31880
- Debian 10.2
- Fedora Workstation 31
- Manjaro 18.1.4
- Solus 4
- Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
- Ubuntu 19.10
- openSUSE Tumbleweed
Each Linux distribution was up-to-date with its latest stable packages as of testing and run in an out-of-the-box configuration to provide a representative look at how any new Linux user would experience the platform.
Via the Phoronix Test Suite more than 70 benchmarks were run on each operating system.