Is Antergos Arch Linux Really Faster Than Ubuntu, Fedora?

Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS was faster than Antergos and Fedora 20 for the Threaded I/O Tester benchmark. All of the file-systems were using EXT4 but a possible explanation for the performance difference is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS defaulted to the deadline I/O scheduler for this SSD-backed system while the other Linux distributions defaulted to CFQ.

Antergos had a very slight lead over Fedora with the PostMark disk benchmark.

For some of the graphics test runs the Intel HD Graphics 4000 was the fastest with Antergos, which isn't too much of a surprise given that it's a rolling release distribution always shipping with the very latest software package versions and the open-source graphics drivers are constantly improving. Fedora 20 out-of-the-box was obviously the slowest with its Intel graphics driver from last year.