Arch Linux, Clear Linux, Fedora Compete On The ASUS ROG Strix G15

When taking the geometric mean of the dozens of different benchmarks carried out, Clear Linux was the fastest. Clear Linux was 3% faster than Fedora/Arch or 5% compared to Ubuntu 21.04 with Linux 5.13. Granted, on individual workloads the spreads in many instances were much greater.

Clear Linux did offer the best performance on the ASUS ROG Strix G15, similar to what we've seen out of Clear on other AMD systems too even for being developed by Intel. Though outside of the performance wins, the other distributions do have more vast package archives/repositories available for those needing easy access to a diverse collection of software. Clear Linux has also been divesting away from the Linux desktop while still supported have been focusing more on cloud/server performance. There has also been less communications regarding Clear Linux coming out of Intel that does raise some concerns for those wondering about long-term support or what direction it may take under Intel's new leadership, but in any case its out-of-the-box performance does continue to lead in 2021 for both Intel and AMD systems.

See all the benchmark results in full via this OpenBenchmarking.org result file.

For those wondering whether using Clear Linux or alternatives led to higher power consumption or operating temperatures for this ASUS ROG Strix G15 laptop, between Arch Linux, Clear Linux, and Fedora Workstation 34 I also ran some follow-up benchmarks.

The average peak frequency being achieved across a range of tests tended to be 4.0~4.1GHz for this Ryzen 9 5900HX laptop. (The 5.6GHz peak on Fedora Workstation 34 seems to be a race condition or some other driver issue.)

The CPU power consumption reported by RAPL showed both Arch Linux and Clear Linux having a 46 Watt average reported by RAPL while Fedora Workstation 34 was at a 49 Watt average.

The Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU temperature monitoring support isn't queued until introduction in Linux 5.15, but for the system temperature under benchmark loads they were quite similar at 67~70 degrees.