Windows vs. Linux Scaling Performance From 16 To 128 Threads With AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X

The DAV1D AV1 video decoder was one of the few cases where on Linux the performance dropped at 128 threads albeit by a small amount. Windows 10 Enterprise was offering a few more frames per second than Windows 10 Professional. At 16 cores, Linux was just 13% faster than Windows for DAV1D but at 64 cores was 1.66x.

Next up is Intel's Embree ray-tracing kernel performance on each platform. Interestingly this is one of the cases where both Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise continued scaling nicely up to 128 threads and was for the most part keeping pace with Linux. At the varying core/thread counts, Linux was generally just 6~8% faster than Windows.

Another Intel open-source software project that is always interesting for benchmarking are their Scalable Video Technology encoders. The SVT-AV1 performance at 16 cores was actually faster on Windows, at 32 cores was similar between Windows and Linux, and at 48 cores and higher is where Clear Linux was pulling ahead. SVT-AV1 was another case of where the default 64 cores + SMT (128 threads) led to lower performance on Windows while Linux continued scaling. Windows stopped scaling with SVT-AV1 at around 48 cores.

With Intel's SVT-HEVC encoder for H.265, the results were quite close again between Windows and Linux. With the SVT-HEVC encoder the Windows 10 Enterprise performance slightly outpaced Linux through 64 cores. At 128 threads, Linux lost a few FPS while Windows 10 Enterprise/Professional took a much bigger hit. Windows 10 Enterprise here was offering some nice performance advantages over the Professional edition.

Rounding out the Intel Scalable Video Technology encoders is SVT-VP9. In this case, at 16 cores the Windows vs. Linux performance was close but at 32 cores and beyond is where the Linux results were much stronger. This again was another example of Windows 10 Enterprise running faster than Windows 10 Professional on the Threadripper 3990X. Windows saw roughly the same performance at 128 threads compared to 64 threads while Clear Linux actually experienced a drop in performance.