Linux Kernel Benchmarks Of 2.6.24 Through 2.6.39
With the 7-Zip compression results is where the results are a bit more interesting as the application's performance was impacted by the kernel release it was running. There were several performance drops for 7-Zip on multiple kernel releases, but with the Linux 2.6.38/2.6.39, it is back up near a high point, but is not at the top.
With the x264 video encoding there was a performance drop in Linux 2.6.25, but then recovered in 2.6.26. From there on out it's a straight line until the Linux 2.6.35 kernel when it regresses slightly and since that point the performance is still slightly down, even with Linux 2.6.39.
When looking at the time to build the Apache web-server under each kernel, there is a slight increase in the time required to build the server with the Linux 2.6.38 kernel and it is still that way with Linux 2.6.39. In the pre-2.6.38 kernels, there is relatively little change.