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When we compared the Dell XPS 13 to the MacBook Neo, we kept seeing the same comment: why don't you try Linux? Many of you think that Windows only limits this laptop. So today we have two identically configured Dell XPS 13s: one running Windows 11 and the other running Linux, so we can see how much the OS really affects the performance of such a hardware-limited device. There are a few nuances that I want to talk about in advance. First, we are using Fedora Linux here. Of course, there are many different Linux distributions, so this doesn't necessarily reflect every possible Linux experience. Second, we don't run synthetic tests or games, instead we focus on testing real-world applications and workflows with our robotic mouse
and keyboard. This way we can see if Linux is really much faster than Windows, or if the problem was never with Windows. Let's find out. This episode is sponsored by Whatnot, where we've not only found some crazy discounts on all this tech, but we're also giving one of you a chance to win an iPhone 17. Whatnot is a live shopping platform where you buy things in real time. For example, these Powerbeats Fit, which normally cost $200, I purchased brand new for just $72. As for premium tech, I bought this used M2 MacBook Pro, which arrived in pretty good condition, and only cost me $610, which is not bad at all.
Of course, you can't always win every lot, but if you're patient and know how much you're willing to spend, you can get some very good deals. For example, I picked up this 20,000 mAh power bank and these two-in-one headphones for just $13 each. But it's not just technology. Whatnot has a ton of different categories of products, from sweets to perfumes, and everything I ordered arrived quickly and the whole process was simple. Speaking of simplicity: thanks to Whatnot, we're also giving one of you a chance to win an iPhone 17. To enter, simply enter your Whatnot username under this video, and you'll find all the rules and information below. Well, let 's start by booting each of these laptops from a completely powered off state. While we
wait, I want to emphasize once again that these laptops have identical specifications. Both are powered by the same Intel Core i5 320 processor and have only 8GB of RAM. The only difference here is in the operating systems themselves. At least when it came to booting, they were very close, and Windows even turned out to be a second or two faster on average. Of course, you don't always turn on your laptop from scratch. And often, at least for me, I reboot it more often than I turn it on. And this time we see a significant difference. The Linux version of the XPS fully boots the OS in just 27 seconds, compared to the 61 seconds it took Windows.
It's worth noting that the results varied slightly from attempt to attempt, especially on Windows, but on average the performance is consistent: Linux reboots about twice as fast. Since we are talking about a laptop with only 8 GB of RAM, we also wanted to see the memory usage at rest after each reboot, after waiting a minute: Fedora was only using 33% of those 8 GB, while Windows in idle mode was already consuming 85%. And while higher RAM consumption isn't always a bad thing, for a laptop with limited resources it's nice to have that much headroom on Linux. Anyway, it's time to test real applications, and the first of them is web browsing: on our local site, we load videos, 3D models, maps, and even perform calculations to build a graph. And
this time they were identical, each of them completing the task in 19 seconds. Apparently this was only in Chrome. We did not test Firefox or Edge because we wanted to compare under the same conditions. But, on the other hand, the results were at least consistent. In the next task, we open the same 500- page document through Only Office, since Microsoft Word is, of course, not available on Linux. And just like in the browser, there was no significant difference- both finished in about 9 seconds. Of course, opening a document is a fairly easy task. So in this task, we increase the workload a bit: we create a PDF file and then perform OCR, where each laptop has to extract text from the same image. And under such a greater load, we
see a difference, albeit a small one: the Linux machine coped on average 3 seconds faster. But it was this file unzipping task that I was looking forward to the most, as when testing the XPS against the MacBook Neo, this was the area where the Neo simply beat everyone else. And it seems like this was a Windows-only problem, as on Linux the same hardware handled it instantly, unzipping a 6- gigabyte file in just 12 seconds versus 57 seconds on Windows. In the past video, many of you recommended using 7-Zip instead of letting Windows handle it natively. And 7-Zip really helps speed up the process, reducing the unzipping time from 57 seconds to 17 seconds. So, sometimes you can solve performance issues simply by using a different app. But it's worth
noting that even with 7-Zip, Linux still runs faster out of the box. So halfway through, I think the trend becomes quite obvious. Or the operating system doesn't matter at all, like in a download test or web surfing. And if it does matter, then the advantage is always on the side of Linux. Sometimes by a fairly significant margin. However, we still have five tests ahead of us. And they will become more and more serious. Like here in VS Code, where we load the code of an open application for a virtual whiteboard. We scan every file in the project for errors.
We compile all of this into a finished application. And then we run almost 1,900 tests to make sure everything works. And after all that, my goodness, Linux completes the process in just 2 minutes and 20 seconds, while on the same hardware, but under Windows, it takes a minute longer-3 minutes and 41 seconds. There were some fluctuations, again, more on Windows than Linux, but the results here are quite stable. Next, we move on to editing the photo in [__]: first we open the application, and then we load the same 4K image onto each laptop. As for the actual editing, we use the Smudge tool on the roller, the Healing Brush tool to remove some of
the text on the side of the robot, and finally select and delete the cone in the background. And the good news, at least for Windows, is that this result was much closer. The Linux machine still finished first, completing the whole thing in just 53 seconds, while the Windows-based XPS was only 7 seconds behind. And now in DaVinci we will edit the same video clips. And you know, even though this laptop was clearly not built for such heavy-duty tasks, we still wanted to see how much of an impact the operating system could really make. We start by opening the program and importing the same two clips, then applying color correction to the first, stabilization to the second, and then exporting the entire sequence. And you can immediately see how
Linux-based XPS is starting to break through. He is already working on exporting the sequence, while the Windows laptop has barely begun to stabilize. Apparently, Windows XPS does not stabilize or export video faster. The Linux machine completed the entire workflow in 2 minutes and 11 seconds, while Windows took almost 40 seconds longer-it finished in 2 minutes and 50 seconds. Looking at the test data, we see the same picture: Windows results vary from attempt to attempt, while all Linux tests completed within one second of each other. Whether this variability is related to memory management, background activity,
or something else, I can't say for sure, but in any case, Linux turned out to be faster in everything. But whether it will be the same in Blender is another question. We are just rendering the same scene in 1080p resolution. And this time the operating system did not affect the result: both laptops managed in the same 44 seconds. And unlike what we saw in DaVinci, the Windows results were at least fairly consistent in every attempt, just like they were on Linux. So, for our final test, we simply launch the game Cyberpunk. Although the Dell XPS 13 isn't designed for gaming, we wanted to see if there was a difference even during a normal game launch. And this is one of the few cases where Windows was ahead.
Even if it's just a little bit-the Cyberpunk game launched 3 seconds faster. Of course, we didn't test every program in the world or run gaming benchmarks. But after looking at the applications and workflows we tested, I think the result is clear: Linux definitely provides, at least for this laptop, a significant performance boost. Anyway, that's all I have for this video. Thanks for watching, and as always, see you in the next episode.
