Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake" Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance
From the benchmarks today it's looking like the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU performance is fairly stable from Linux 6.11 through 6.13 kernels with no major performance shifts besides some subtle variation.
The OpenJDK Java performance on Intel Arrow Lake was mixed but typically with Ubuntu Linux leading for this 24-core desktop.
Across the span of 92 benchmarks carried out, Ubuntu 24.10 was about 6% faster than Windows 11 24H2 for this out-of-the-box / default comparison. All the benchmarks in full can be found here. There was little benefit to the performance itself from switching out the Linux 6.11 default kernel on Ubuntu 24.10 to using Linux 6.12 LTS stable or Linux 6.13 Git, but the newer kernels can provide some features and hardware support such as if you'll also be going for Intel Arc B-Series graphics, for example. It was surprising to see the Intel P-State performance governor providing little help for the Core Ultra 9 285K compared to the default powersave governor. Typically the performance governor allows for more headroom but wasn't the case here with the Core Ultra 9 285K and ASUS motherboard.
In any event that's where things stand today for Intel Arrow Lake between Windows and Ubuntu Linux. For those curious about any further upside if going for the likes of CachyOS or Intel's own Clear Linux, some additional complementary benchmarks are coming up next.
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