News
Games
Software
Music
Technology
Hardware
eSports
AI-Artificial Intelligence
Internet
Intel’s latest Core Ultra 9 285K received a mixed response due to its average performance, but switching to Linux may enhance its capabilities. According to Phoronix, the 285K performed about 6% better on Ubuntu 24.10—its latest version—compared to Windows 11 with the 24H2 update. Additionally, upgrading the Linux kernel to 6.13 pushed performance even further, with the 285K running approximately 8% faster on the combination of Ubuntu 24.10 and Linux 6.13.
A closer examination of individual benchmarks indicates that the 285K struggles with various tasks on Windows. It particularly performs poorly in areas such as rendering, ray tracing, encoding, and even specific applications like chess simulators. For instance, in an encoding test using the SVT-AV1 software, the 285K was almost twice as fast on Ubuntu as it was on Windows, and many benchmarks indicated significant performance improvements when using Ubuntu.
Despite these advantages, the 285K did outperform Windows in some specific tests, including texture compression in ASTC Encoder and H.265 encoding in Kvazaar. There were also a few Java tests where the 285K managed to secure a win.
In about a third of the benchmarks, the performance of the 285K was roughly equal on both operating systems. Considering this along with the few instances where Windows showed better performance, the overall speed on Ubuntu was only 6 to 8% faster, varying with the OS and kernel settings.
Gaming is a notable weakness for the 285K; in a review, it was found to be slightly slower than the older 14900K. Phoronix, however, did not test any games, primarily due to the limited availability of native Linux ports.
Phoronix was intrigued by the fact that the 285K didn’t see a performance boost when using Intel's P-State performance governor—akin to Windows’ high-performance power plan. Typically, the default powersave governor results in lower performance, but that trend did not hold up in these tests.
The 285K isn’t alone in better performance on Linux; Intel's new Battlemage B580 GPU also showcases improved results in a Linux environment, though it still lags behind in gaming scenarios where Windows maintains an advantage.
A closer examination of individual benchmarks indicates that the 285K struggles with various tasks on Windows. It particularly performs poorly in areas such as rendering, ray tracing, encoding, and even specific applications like chess simulators. For instance, in an encoding test using the SVT-AV1 software, the 285K was almost twice as fast on Ubuntu as it was on Windows, and many benchmarks indicated significant performance improvements when using Ubuntu.
Despite these advantages, the 285K did outperform Windows in some specific tests, including texture compression in ASTC Encoder and H.265 encoding in Kvazaar. There were also a few Java tests where the 285K managed to secure a win.
In about a third of the benchmarks, the performance of the 285K was roughly equal on both operating systems. Considering this along with the few instances where Windows showed better performance, the overall speed on Ubuntu was only 6 to 8% faster, varying with the OS and kernel settings.
Gaming is a notable weakness for the 285K; in a review, it was found to be slightly slower than the older 14900K. Phoronix, however, did not test any games, primarily due to the limited availability of native Linux ports.
Phoronix was intrigued by the fact that the 285K didn’t see a performance boost when using Intel's P-State performance governor—akin to Windows’ high-performance power plan. Typically, the default powersave governor results in lower performance, but that trend did not hold up in these tests.
The 285K isn’t alone in better performance on Linux; Intel's new Battlemage B580 GPU also showcases improved results in a Linux environment, though it still lags behind in gaming scenarios where Windows maintains an advantage.