macOS 10.14 Mojave vs. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS vs. Clear Linux Benchmarks

MacOS Mojave continues using the new Apple File-System (APFS) that has been the default since High Sierra. I didn't run many disk tests though since APFS still doesn't behave properly with regards to fsync / syncing to the disk... The macOS results such as in this SQLite test remain way too fast for actually having committed the operations to the disk compared to the performance we see on Linux or even Windows.

In a basic test like the time to uncompress a .tar.xz package, Ubuntu and Clear Linux were both faster than macOS.

Running a few gaming tests on macOS and Ubuntu (no Clear Linux here due to the mentioned GPU issue with the hardware) is what most of you are likely interested in... The Radeon RX 460 graphics aren't the most powerful and with the MacBook Pro is subject to thermal throttling, but a few light games run fine. With Dota 2 on OpenGL, Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS with its stock RadeonSI+AMDGPU stack was several frames faster than Linux. Keep in mind Apple has now deprecated OpenGL (and OpenCL) with macOS Mojave and is subject to removal in a future release.

The Dota 2 Vulkan results (via MoltenVK on macOS) were much closer. The Vulkan vs. OpenGL performance under Ubuntu on this MacBook Pro was about the same speed, but the macOS performance is improved by several FPS when using Vulkan/MoltenVK.

With the OpenGL-based Xonotic game, the performance on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS was much better off than macOS High Sierra or Mojave. The peak FPS was higher on macOS, but the average and minimum frame-rates were well lower than Ubuntu.