Linux + KDE Delivers Better NVIDIA Performance than Windows

Rob Williams · 09-13-2012, 02:33 PM

Back in August, Valve made a blog post showing off Left 4 Dead performance between Windows and Linux, and surprisingly, Linux came out ahead. Following-up with more elaborate testing is Phoronix, which has found that across the board, Linux's NVIDIA driver delivers better performance than Windows', using the same benchmarks. But there's something else that was discovered: Unity is slower than KDE, and as such, KDE will offer the best NVIDIA experience.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

Tharic-Nar · 09-13-2012, 02:53 PM

Some odd numbers there for sure... Unity is slower than Windows by quite a margin on a 460, but slightly faster with a 680. I guess the drivers make use of the improved architecture and tune accordingly. Bit of a shame if I'm honest, it probably means that older generation cards are likely to be in a much worse position for rendering under Unity than they should be.

Could it be the Fermi mode switching the older cards did when working with 3D and Compute?

09-13-2012, 02:33 PM	#1
Rob Williams Editor-in-Chief Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Atlantic Canada Posts: 13,231	Linux + KDE Delivers Better NVIDIA Performance than Windows Back in August, Valve made a blog post showing off Left 4 Dead performance between Windows and Linux, and surprisingly, Linux came out ahead. Following-up with more elaborate testing is Phoronix, which has found that across the board, Linux's NVIDIA driver delivers better performance than Windows', using the same benchmarks. But there's something else that was discovered: Unity is slower than KDE, and as such, KDE will offer the best NVIDIA experience. Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here! __________________ Intel Core i7-990X EE @ 3.43GHz, GIGABYTE X58A-UD5, Kingston 12GB DDR3-1333, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SSD, WD VR 1TB, WD 2TB, Seagate 2TB, LG BD-ROM, ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 1000HX, Corsair H60 Cooler Corsair 800D, Dell 2408WFP 24", ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Gentoo (KDE 4.10, 3.7 Kernel) "Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!" - H.P. Baxxter <Toad772> I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do, I take it too far.

09-13-2012, 02:53 PM	#2
Tharic-Nar Techgage Staff Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: UK Posts: 1,151	Some odd numbers there for sure... Unity is slower than Windows by quite a margin on a 460, but slightly faster with a 680. I guess the drivers make use of the improved architecture and tune accordingly. Bit of a shame if I'm honest, it probably means that older generation cards are likely to be in a much worse position for rendering under Unity than they should be. Could it be the Fermi mode switching the older cards did when working with 3D and Compute? __________________ PSU: Corsair 1000HX - Case: Thermaltake Xaser VI Full Tower - CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 @3.8GHz - Cooler: Thermaltake FRIO - Motherboard: ASUS P67 Sabertooth - Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LP Arctic 1600 - GPU: 2x AMD Radeon HD 5870 - HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB 6Gb/s - Audio: ASUS Xonar DX + Corsair HS1 USB Headset K/B: Corsair K90 - Mouse: Corsair M60 - Monitor: DELL U2410 - Speakers: Corsair SP2500 - Headset: Corsair HS1A - Mic: Blue Yeti USB Microphone - I need Fiber to fix my Irregular Bandwidth Syndrome - Last edited by Tharic-Nar; 09-13-2012 at 02:57 PM.