Linux 4.0, Linux 4.1 Brings Performance Boosts For Some Intel Low-Power Hardware

Across the board, the Intel Compute Stick with its Atom Z3735F Bay Trail-T SoC saw significantly better performance under Linux 4.0 and 4.1 than with Linux 3.19 as shipped by Ubuntu 15.04. The gains were huge! For anyone planning to buy an Intel Compute Stick as the $150 or less HDMI computer, moving to the Linux 4.0 kernel or newer would be definitely recommended!

What's sad is that the Ubuntu pre-loaded version of the Intel Compute Stick that will begin shipping in June is using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and most likely with its stock kernel. Thus users will by default have a slower experience out-of-the-box unless they're frequent Phoronix readers and now manually switch to the latest Linux kernel.

With the Celeron N2820 NUC, which is also part of the Bay Trail family, there weren't such significant improvements seen out of the CPU tests with Linux 4.0+. However, for the HD Graphics tests, the N2820 shared some performance improvements when using the in-development Linux 4.1 kernel.

Stay tuned for additional Intel Linux tests on the 4.1 kernel in other forthcoming articles. If you appreciate the Linux hardware testing done at Phoronix, please think about subscribing to Phoronix Premium or making a PayPal tip.