Final Benchmarks Of Clear Linux On Intel: ~48% Faster Than Ubuntu Out-Of-The-Box
Ending this final Intel Clear Linux benchmarking on Xeon Max once again showed the terrific out-of-the-box performance of this open-source Intel Linux distribution....
With the geometric mean of nearly 100 benchmarks, Clear Linux in its final state was 48% faster than Ubuntu 25.04 out-of-the-box on this Intel Xeon Max Supermicro server. Or even when changing Ubuntu 25.04 from its defaults to using the "performance" governor that is common for Linux servers, Clear Linux was still 16% faster than Ubuntu 25.04 with the performance governor.
Just as important as the raw performance is the power efficiency. For the two Intel Xeon Max 9468 Sapphire Rapids processors, the Clear Linux power consumption was very close to Ubuntu 25.04 with the performance governor. The combined dual socket CPU power consumption was 538 Watts for Ubuntu 25.04 with the performance governor and 540 Watts for Clear Linux... No meaningful difference there yet around 16% faster than Ubuntu 25.04 with the performance governor. Or compared to Ubuntu 25.04 at its (schedutil) pure defaults, Clear Linux was 48% faster for just a 19% increase in the Xeon Max 2P power consumption on average.
It's very unfortunate that Clear Linux development has ended. Hopefully Intel's software engineers will be able to continue working on their Linux software optimizations for contributing to other Linux distributions. A final run looking at the Clear Linux performance on AMD hardware is now underway for wrapping up next week with ending the era of Clear Linux benchmarking on Phoronix.
If you enjoyed this article consider joining Phoronix Premium to view this site ad-free, multi-page articles on a single page, and other benefits. PayPal or Stripe tips are also graciously accepted. Thanks for your support.