Liquorix 3.11 Kernel Benchmarks

It's been several kernel releases since last benchmarking the Liquorix kernel, an optimized version of the Linux kernel that's advertised as "built using the best configuration and kernel sources for desktop, multimedia, and gaming workloads." In Liquorix having out their version of the Linux 3.11 kernel since late September, here are some benchmarks comparing Liquorix to recent mainline versions of the vanilla Linux kernel.

Prior to this week's Linux 3.12 kernel testing expedition with the CPUfreq changes causing performance increases for some graphics drivers, I ran benchmarks of the Liquorix 3.11 kernel compared to the mainline Linux 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12 Git kernels. The stock kernels were obtained from the Ubuntu Mainline Kernel PPA while the Liquorix 3.11 kernel was obtained from their Debian package archive.

Those wanting to dig deep into the Liquorix kernel changes can find more information along with the sources and kernel configuration files at Liquorix.net. Some key information about the Liquorix 3.11 kernel includes the use of BFQ, the Intel P-State driver, and the same EXT4 file-system mount options as the mainline tree.

All of this Linux/Liquorix kernel benchmarking happened with the System76 Galago UltraPro ultrabook with Intel Core i7 4750HQ "Haswell" processor with Iris Pro 5200 graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 120GB Intel SSD. Xubuntu 13.10 was the base operating system while changing out the four different kernels. All kernels were used with their packaged configurations and settings.