Preview: Ubuntu's Performance Over The Past Two Years

Our latest look at the current development state of Ubuntu 13.10 is comparing the "Saucy Salamander" performance against that of Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10, 12.04.2 LTS, and 11.10. Testing was done with an Intel Sandy Bridge system to see how the Ubuntu Linux performance has evolved over the past two years in the road to the October release of Ubuntu 13.10.

Ubuntu 11.10 through Ubuntu 13.10 (the development state as of 5 July) were compared with their stock packages and settings throughout a range of open-source Linux benchmarks. The system used for this testing was an Intel Core i7 3960X "Sandy Bridge" Extreme Edition setup with Radeon HD 4650 graphics, 8GB of RAM, and a 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD.

Over the past two years, the Radeon HD 4650 performance is generally up on the open-source R600 Gallium3D driver. From Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10, there isn't yet a big change since Mesa 9.1 is still being shipped at the moment while Ubuntu 13.10 final will ship Mesa 9.2, which does bring Radeon performance improvements.