A Nasty Performance Regression For Some Intel Systems Wound Up In Linux 6.5 Stable

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 13 September 2023 at 04:00 PM EDT. Page 3 of 6. 5 Comments.
Kvazaar benchmark with settings of Video Input: Bosphorus 4K, Video Preset: Medium. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
Kvazaar benchmark with settings of Video Input: Bosphorus 1080p, Video Preset: Medium. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
Kvazaar benchmark with settings of Video Input: Bosphorus 4K, Video Preset: Super Fast. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-AV1 benchmark with settings of Encoder Mode: Preset 8, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-AV1 benchmark with settings of Encoder Mode: Preset 4, Input: Bosphorus 1080p. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-AV1 benchmark with settings of Encoder Mode: Preset 13, Input: Bosphorus 1080p. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.

One of the areas in general that tended to regress a lot in Linux 6.5 across multiple applications were video encoding benchmarks, which tend to be quite sensitive to Linux kernel scheduler and power management / CPU frequency scaling changes.

SVT-HEVC benchmark with settings of Tuning: 1, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-HEVC benchmark with settings of Tuning: 10, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-HEVC benchmark with settings of Tuning: 1, Input: Bosphorus 1080p. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-VP9 benchmark with settings of Tuning: VMAF Optimized, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.
SVT-VP9 benchmark with settings of Tuning: Visual Quality Optimized, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Linux 6.4.14 was the fastest.

I'm surprised this level of a regression on an Intel Core i9 13900K made it all the way to Linux 6.5 stable.


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