Windows 10 vs. Eight Linux Distributions In Various "Creator" Workloads On An Intel Core i9

For those wondering about the current performance of desktop Linux distributions against Microsoft Windows 10 with the latest updates as we embark upon fall update season, here is a look at the performance of eight different Linux distributions compared to Windows 10. While a larger set of cross-platform tests are currently being worked on, for this article we are focusing on different "creator" workloads from video/audio encoding, render workloads, and related software prior to the larger comparison in the next week or two.

Besides looking at creator-focused workloads for this article, some of the tests being done are the first time we are running them in a Windows vs. Linux comparison. In particular, some new OpenBenchmarking.org / Phoronix Test Suite test profiles around Intel oneAPI rendering toolkit components like Embree and Open Image Denoise.

The eight Linux distributions tested included:

- CentOS Stream
- Clear Linux 31140
- Debian 10.1
- Fedora Workstation 30
- Manjaro Linux 18.1
- openSUSE Tumbleweed
- Ubuntu 19.04
- Ubuntu 19.10 20190930

Windows 10 Professional and all of these Linux distributions were run with all available updates as of test time. This round of testing was done on an Intel Core i9 7980XE with ASUS PRIME X99-A motherboard, 4 x 4GB DDR4-3200 memory, Samsung 970 EVO 500GB NVMe SSD, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X graphics. The Core i9 7980XE was chosen as the latest Core i9 HEDT CPU I have available currently. Similar AMD Windows vs. Linux tests with their latest updates are coming down the pipeline soon.

So let's continue with this quick comparison looking at "creator" workloads between Windows and Linux.