Linux 4.1 Offers Potentially Dazzling Performance

Before getting too excited, it doesn't seem that the performance is dramatically faster for all Intel CPUs but is likely some combination of the processor/chipset and other factors. Over on LinuxBenchmarking.com continue to be daily performance benchmarks of the Linux kernel Git, however, when looking at the results for the time since the 4.1 merge window, these particular systems didn't seem to have any surprising jumps as was seen by this system outside of the server room.

Long story short, there are a lot of great features coming for Linux 4.1, including some performance improvements, but that's largely dependent on the hardware. For the select Intel Atom hardware that's faster under Linux 4.1, that's due to Intel tuning the P-State scaling driver while for the i7-5960X desktop difference, that change I am unsure about at this time but will be further investigated.

If you would like to see more of this investigative testing continue and adding more systems to the LinuxBenchmarking.com test farm, please consider subscribing to Phoronix Premium or making a PayPal tip - of which, it's dedicated to adding more systems to the daily Linux benchmarking plus the related expenses. More systems are critical to have a very diverse spectrum of systems running these benchmarks daily to uncover the various corner cases and isolated changes.

Looking forward to Linux 4.2 there should be Haswell and Broadwell power improvements, new graphics drivers, and faster SSD performance with CFQ. Stay tuned to Phoronix for updates and open-source Linux benchmarks on Facebook and Twitter. Feedback/suggestions on testing, etc, welcome as always.