Upcoming Linux Hardware Tests, Benchmarks

Here's a look at some of the interesting Phoronix articles, open-source Linux benchmarks, and other coverage coming up in the next few weeks on Phoronix.

With a really busy schedule coming up the next few weeks due to the Ubuntu Developer Summit and a few weeks of business in Europe, most of the Phoronix content that I'm responsible for is already being prepared to get through early June -- when it will be the Phoronix birthday of eight years.

Some of the interesting content planned for the coming weeks include:

Windows 8 - My thoughts on Microsoft Windows 8... Gabe Newell last week at Valve encouraged me to try out Windows 8 to see what I thought of it and if it's as bad as he views it. Well, simply put, it is. There are a few positive points, but overall Windows 8 is far from being a nice fit for me. My thoughts in full on this latest Microsoft operating system will be out in the next few days.

ARM on Ubuntu benchmarks - There will be updated benchmarks of Ubuntu 12.04 on the PandaBoard ES, the dual-core OMAP4460 ARMv7 Cortex-A9 platform. The Ubuntu 12.04 ARMv7 performance has improved a lot thanks to hard-float by default, proper cpufreq support for the OMAP4460, etc.

ARM: GCC vs. LLVM/Clang - The first Phoronix comparison of the GCC and LLVM/Clang compilers under ARMv7 (from the dual-core ARM PandaBoard ES). The results are interesting and a different outcome than the x86 compiler comparison results.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS graphics on Ivy Bridge - A look at the performance of the open-source Intel Linux graphics stack for Ivy Bridge as shipped in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" compared to the latest Mesa / kernel / libdrm / xf86-video-intel driver code.

I/O schedulers - A revised comparison of the latest kernel with the different I/O scheduler options for SSDs and HDDs.

The rough publishing schedule for this month... As shared on Twitter earlier today.

LLVM 3.1 with Clang and DragonEgg on Sandy Bridge - There's been some LLVM/Clang on Sandy Bridge results already from an early LLVM 3.1 development build, but a new set of tests is coming along, plus most interestingly with DragonEgg results on LLVM 3.1.

Ivy Bridge OpenCL - A look at the Linux OpenCL performance when using Intel's proprietary OpenCL SDK for Core processors. This doesn't use the Ivy Bridge graphics core, but just the CPU side. For comparison are also some Sandy Bridge OpenCL numbers from this IOC SDK.

Intel Glamor - Finally some Intel Glamor acceleration results compared to the stock Intel UXA and SNA (Sandy Bridge New Acceleration) code-paths. Glamor results on Intel Ivy Bridge will also come separately.

Big Radeon Comparison - Another big AMD Radeon Linux graphics card comparison. This time it's from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with Catalyst, the stock Precise open-source packages, with the updated Linux 3.4 / Mesa 8.1-devel / xf86-video-ati Git DDX packages, and then again with the Git graphics packages when PCI Express 2.0 and ColorTiling2D are forced on, plus other possible tweaks.

Ivy Bridge Compiler Tuning - Intel compiler tuning results for GCC and LLVM/Clang when testing different CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS to benefit the new features found on Ivy Bridge processors.

NVIDIA VDPAU - A modern look at the NVIDIA VDPAU video decoding performance.

NVIDIA OpenCL - Some new figures of OpenCL Linux performance on different NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards with the binary blob.

AMD OpenCL - Some new figures of OpenCL Linux performance on different AMD Radeon graphics cards with the binary blob. These numbers are becoming more interesting with OpenCL finally picking up more steam in the open-source community and the Gallium3D drivers finally getting ready with OpenCL acceleration on the GPU.

Intel Ivy Bridge Compiler Comparison - Running various releases of GCC, LLVM/Clang, DragonEgg, Open64, PathScale EKOPath, and others on the Intel Core i7 3770K setup.

Intel Ivy Bridge Kernel DRM - A look at how the Ivy Bridge graphics performance has already evolved thanks to improvements made to Intel's kernel Direct Rendering Manager through its short life so far.

Intel Ivy Bridge Mesa Comparison - Ditto the above, but for Mesa 8.0 and Mesa 8.1-devel on Ivy Bridge with the i7-3770K.

XFS/EXT4/Btrfs On The Linux 3.2/3.3/3.4 Kernels - A look at how the popular Btrfs, XFS, and EXT4 file-systems are shaping up on the latest Linux 3.4 development kernel.

Big Kernel Roundabout - A big Linux kernel comparison looking at the performance of different subsystems over many releases.

LLVMpipe On Ivy Bridge - Using LLVMpipe on Ivy Bridge for any real OpenGL workloads is still slow.

Intel vs. AMD OpenCL On The CPU - Both AMD and Intel offer proprietary OpenCL implementations that allow for this GPGPU code to run on modern CPUs, but which implementation is faster?

Ivy Bridge On Different Desktops - The Ivy Bridge Linux graphics performance with different desktop environments / window managers.

Z77 Motherboards - There's still reviews of a few different Intel Z77 motherboards under Linux that are forthcoming. There's also a SilverStone TJ04 Evolution chassis review.

By the time these articles are all published, it should be early June and I'll be back from Europe and Phoronix will have turned eight years old.

Thanks to the Phoronix Test Suite with OpenBenchmarking.org and Phoromatic, it's very easy to benchmark around the world in a reliable manner. For those Phoronix readers, Phoronix Test Suite / OpenBenchmarking.org users, or any other Linux enthusiasts wishing to meet up this month or in early June (notify me via email or Twitter): Next week I'll be in Oakland, California for the Ubuntu Developer Summit. After that it's off to Europe. From 15 to 19 May I'll be in Trondheim, Norway. There might be a Phoronix meet-up, otherwise it's always easy to find the non-Norwegian in the city center during Russ / National Day.

After Trondheim, it will likely be Frankfurt/Darmstadt from 19 to 23 May followed by Berlin. LinuxTag this year is from 23 to 26 of May where those interested can easily find me and chat over beer. Following LinuxTag, there will likely be a Phoronix meet-up in Frankfurt, Munich, and/or Nuremberg going into June.

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