In 2019, a test was done to see if Blender would be faster in Linux or Windows by CG Geek. In that test Linux was quicker by a whopping 49% on average compared to Windows. The hardware he used was an i9 9900K, 16Gb DDR 3200MHrz RAM, NVidia Titan RTX card, with an NVME SSD that is dual boot to Linux and Windows. But a lot happens in 4 years in my eyes.
What about all the Blender updates since 2.8?
There has been a significant improvement in Blender itself, especially when CyclesX came into play. At the time of writing, Blender 3.5 is finally officially released, which is a massive improvement upgrade from v2.8.
The Process and Question
I will render some of the Demo Files, which you can download from blender.org for this test. I’ll be including one of my projects for this test. The hardware I’m using is an entry-level PC but good enough for a hobbyist project builder. CG Geek’s results are on the high-end PC side, which explains his results. But the question is, is it the same with low-end PCs?
In this test, I’ll use Windows 10 because my system is not good enough for Windows 11. And for Linux, I will be using Linux Mint Mate because it’s even lighter than Ubuntu Studio.
My PC Hardware Specs
NVidia GTX 1060 3Gb Vram GPU
8Gb 2666MHrz RAM
Intel i5–6500 Quad Core 3.2GHz CPU
SSD drive on both operating systems.
Hypothesis — My Speculation
Linux is already snappier than Windows. In my experience, Linux not as resource hungry as Windows. With RAM, Windows already uses around 20–25%. With Linux, up to less than 1GB.
With this already-known information, Linux will be more capable of rendering RAM-heavier scenes than Windows.
Remember: RAM is applicable for quick file exchanges and does not increase rendering speed [MHrz is the only factor that plays with speed]. If the rendered scene exceeds 8GB, we’re looking at bottlenecking render and how each Operating System [OS] handles the bottleneck.
Due to being less resource heavy, the CPU will be more dedicated to the compositing of rendering.
NOTE: Rendering is faster with GPU only setting on when you are with more complex scenes other than the default cube only.
Scene 1: PartyTug 6:00AM
Ian Hubert is someone who knows how to optimize his scenes which is great. You get a complex scene and my PC had no struggle rendering on Linux or Windows. Ian is a big fan of photogrammetry and is also known for his Lazy Tutorials.
Linux: 02:53.59 — Windows: 02:57.18
Increase 2.07%
Scene 2: Blender 3.5 Splash Screen
Nicole Morena was on the Blender Conference on how to Develop Your 3D Style. In this render test everything is low poly that has a subsurf modifier added which will show the results how the OS likes handling modifiers.
Linux: 00:51.84Windows: 00:53.16
Increase 2.55%
Scene 4: Cyberpunk Car
Timo van Wyk is still pretty new under the radar but loves doing experiments and learning what Blender is capable of. He’s sharpening his skills to distribute quality work for others to see.
Linux: 02:28.96Windows: 02:32.18
Increase 2.16%
Results
Taking all the render times and putting it on average, we find that Linux is 2.26% faster than Windows when rendering.
Conclusion
In my opinion it’s not worth the transition if you work with other software like Adobe and only want to work with one OS. But in my experience what made me want to work on Linux rather than Windows, is the snappiness with Blender. The render viewport is much smoother than on Windows when working. If you optimize enough it feels like real render time in the viewport and I don’t even own a RTX GPU!
But in the end it’s your choice how you want to create your workflow. I dual boot my PC because I prefer Blender on Linux, but for DaVinci Resolve and Photoshop I have to use Windows.
Sleep Safe — Safe Travels