macOS 12.1 vs. Ubuntu vs. Clear Linux vs. Windows Benchmarks

Recently I looked at the macOS 12 performance against Linux when it comes to the Intel-based Macs. Stemming from reader requests and curiosity how Windows would perform in the mix, here are such benchmark results with macOS 12.1, Windows 10, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu 21.10.

This comparison features Windows 10 on the 2018 Mac Mini as used in the other recent Linux/macOS benchmarking. Windows 10 21H2 was used with all available system updates as, unfortunately, Windows 11 is not supported on the Intel Macs. Due to TPM / Secure Boot requirements in place with Windows 11, the newer Microsoft OS release is not compatible with the Macs bare metal. It seems the only path forward for Windows 11 on the Macs is via virtualization unless the Windows 11 requirements are revised.

So for this comparison was the latest Windows 10 up against Ubuntu 21.10 and Intel's own Clear Linux against Apple macOS 12.1. All tests were done on the same 2018 Mac Mini with Intel Core i7 8700B "Coffee Lake" processor with UHD Graphics 630, 8GB of RAM, and 250GB SSD. The same system was used throughout testing -- the CPU frequency and memory differences reported in the automated system table just amount to how each OS exposes different details, etc.

All operating systems were cleanly installed and running in their out-of-the-box / default state. Via the Phoronix Test Suite a variety of different benchmarks that are all native to macOS / Windows / Linux were run on this Mac Mini for satisfying the curiosity how Windows is competing with macOS and Linux.