AMD’s Ryzen 9000 processors appear to run just fine under Linux, according to recent tests. And indeed, it’s a better operating system than Windows 11 when it comes to performance on Team Red’s latest desktop chips, based on one set of findings.
PC gaming hardware (PCGH) has extensively tested the Ryzen 7 9700X and the German tech website compared the CPU’s performance in Nobara Linux 40 with Windows 11 24H2.
We’ll get to the specifics later, but the overall findings indicate that the mid-range processor was faster under Linux while gaming, judging by the average frame rates of a number of popular titles.
For Linux, these weren’t huge wins, but they were big enough, around 5-10% (with one exception: World of Warcraft, which only saw a 2% difference in Nobara’s favor).
This wasn’t just true for gaming, with apps also running faster in Nobara, such as 7-Zip, and synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench, again by a similar 5% to 10% (although the Handbrake benchmark was an exception to this, where Windows 11 was actually faster than Linux).
Newwinwho noticed this also pointed out Phoronix.com’s benchmarking not only the 9700X but also the 9600X under Ubuntu, with glowing results.
Linux experts Phoronix.com found that using nearly 400 benchmarks, the 9700X was 1.15x faster than the 7700X, and the 9600X was 1.25x faster than its predecessor.
The site concluded that: “The raw performance results (from Ryzen 9000) alone were impressive for this big Linux desktop CPU comparison, but it’s even more compelling when you factor in CPU power consumption.”
Analysis: Here come the caveats…
As for the Nobara Linux vs. Windows 11 showdown, it certainly looks good for the niche alternative to Microsoft’s operating system, but we need to take a step back before we can declare a big victory for Linux.
First of all, this is just one test series from PCGH and there aren’t that many comparisons made, especially in terms of the app (which is hardly exhaustive, but basically a collection of synthetic benchmarks).
We should also keep in mind that Nobara is a gaming-focused distro (based on Fedora), and it’s being compared to Windows 11 24H2. As you may know, 24H2 is still in preview (while it is live on Copilot+ PCs, those laptops are not running the full version, it should be noted) and as such the optimization work is not fully finished.
When it comes to the release of the full 24H2 update, which should roll out to everyone in the next few months (if we’re lucky), we might just see Ryzen 9000 CPUs get faster (in fact, we’d be surprised if they don’t).
That’s not to detract from Nobara’s performance here, and the general speed of the new Ryzen 9000 chips in Linux (Ubuntu), as detailed by Phoronix.com. Linux is clearly a good match for the Ryzen 9000 series, which is great news for those exploring an alternative operating system to Windows.
Windows 11 users don’t need to feel dejected though, as 24H2 likely still needs some optimization work, as mentioned. Besides, Microsoft’s operating system has numerous other advantages over Linux, besides performance. One of the advantages is of course the compatibility with PC games.
In short, anyone considering switching to Linux needs to think very carefully about a number of factors, whether they have a new Zen 5 processor or not…