Fedora 19 Linux 3.9 KVM vs. Xen Virtualization
Intel Core i7-4770K testing on Fedora 19 x86_64 with KVM virtualization. Benchmarking by Michael Larabel for a future article on Phoronix.com.


Bare Metal: 

	Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.50GHz (8 Cores), Motherboard: Intel DH87RL, Chipset: Intel Haswell DRAM, Memory: 15360MB, Disk: 240GB OCZ VERTEX3, Graphics: Intel Haswell IGP, Audio: Intel Haswell HDMI, Monitor: VA2431, Network: Intel Connection I217-V

	OS: Fedora 19 (Schrdingers Cat), Kernel: 3.9.8-300.fc19.x86_64 (x86_64), Desktop: KDE 4.10.4, Display Server: X Server 1.14.1, Display Driver: intel 2.21.8, Compiler: GCC 4.8.1 20130603, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1920x1080

Linux KVM: 

	Processor: QEMU Virtual 1.4.2 @ 3.49GHz (8 Cores), Motherboard: Bochs, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 12288MB, Disk: 16GB, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Generic 1af4 ID 22, Network: Red Hat Virtio device

	OS: Fedora 19, Kernel: 3.9.8-300.fc19.x86_64 (x86_64), Desktop: KDE 4.10.4, Display Server: X Server 1.14.1, Display Driver: modesetting 0.6.0, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 9.2.0-devel Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.8.1 20130603, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: KVM QEMU 1.4.2

Xen: 

	Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.49GHz (8 Cores), Motherboard: Xen HVM domU v4.2.2, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 12288MB, Disk: 16GB, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Ensoniq ES1370

	OS: Fedora 19, Kernel: 3.9.8-300.fc19.x86_64 (x86_64), Desktop: KDE 4.10.4, Display Server: X Server 1.14.1, Display Driver: modesetting 0.6.0, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 9.2.0-devel Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.8.1 20130603, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: Xen HVM domU 4.2.2


PostMark 1.51
Disk Transaction Performance
TPS > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 4121 |============================================================
Linux KVM .. 3948 |=========================================================
Xen ........ 3409 |==================================================


Dolfyn 0.527
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 29.12 |=========================================================
Linux KVM .. 29.20 |=========================================================
Xen ........ 30.22 |===========================================================


FFTE 5.0
Test: N=64, 1D Complex FFT Routine
MFLOPS > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 6049.13 |=========================================================
Linux KVM .. 5912.76 |========================================================
Xen ........ 5816.59 |=======================================================


Timed HMMer Search 2.3.2
Pfam Database Search
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 10.27 |======================================================
Linux KVM .. 10.80 |========================================================
Xen ........ 11.28 |===========================================================


Timed MAFFT Alignment 6.864
Multiple Sequence Alignment
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 5.64 |=================================================
Linux KVM .. 6.66 |==========================================================
Xen ........ 6.85 |============================================================


BLAKE2 20121223
Phoronix Test Suite v4.8.0m1
Cycles Per Byte < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 5.29 |========================================================
Xen ........ 5.62 |============================================================


John The Ripper 1.7.9-jumbo-7
Test: Blowfish
Real C/S > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 6558 |============================================================
Linux KVM .. 6357 |==========================================================
Xen ........ 5669 |====================================================


John The Ripper 1.7.9-jumbo-7
Test: Traditional DES
Real C/S > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 10123667 |========================================================
Linux KVM .. 9808000  |======================================================
Xen ........ 8731000  |================================================


John The Ripper 1.7.9-jumbo-7
Test: MD5
Real C/S > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 41360 |===========================================================
Linux KVM .. 40512 |==========================================================
Xen ........ 39748 |=========================================================


TTSIOD 3D Renderer 2.2z
Phong Rendering With Soft-Shadow Mapping
FPS > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 128.00 |==========================================================
Linux KVM .. 56.07  |=========================
Xen ........ 78.95  |====================================


VP8 libvpx Encoding 1.1.0
vpxenc
Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 26.26 |===========================================================
Linux KVM .. 21.82 |=================================================
Xen ........ 22.99 |====================================================


x264 2013-06-08
H.264 Video Encoding
Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 159.62 |==========================================================
Linux KVM .. 130.51 |===============================================
Xen ........ 147.58 |======================================================


Himeno Benchmark 3.0
Poisson Pressure Solver
MFLOPS > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 1496.78 |=========================================================
Linux KVM .. 1380.73 |=====================================================
Xen ........ 1433.27 |=======================================================


C-Ray 1.1
Total Time
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 22.96 |=========================================================
Linux KVM .. 23.61 |==========================================================
Xen ........ 23.97 |===========================================================


Parallel BZIP2 Compression 1.1.6
256MB File Compression
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 8.78 |========================================================
Linux KVM .. 9.22 |===========================================================
Xen ........ 9.40 |============================================================


Smallpt 1.0
Global Illumination Renderer; 100 Samples
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 85 |=============================================================
Linux KVM .. 87 |==============================================================
Xen ........ 87 |==============================================================


FLAC Audio Encoding 1.3.0
WAV To FLAC
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 4.75 |=========================================================
Linux KVM .. 4.84 |==========================================================
Xen ........ 5.03 |============================================================


FFmpeg 1.1
H.264 HD To NTSC DV
Seconds < Lower Is Better
Bare Metal . 12.73 |===================================================
Linux KVM .. 14.74 |===========================================================
Xen ........ 14.35 |=========================================================


OpenSSL 1.0.1c
RSA 4096-bit Performance
Signs Per Second > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 147.47 |==========================================================
Linux KVM .. 143.50 |========================================================
Xen ........ 144.27 |=========================================================


NGINX Benchmark 1.0.11
Static Web Page Serving
Requests Per Second > Higher Is Better
Bare Metal . 12850.36 |========================================================
Linux KVM .. 10223.16 |=============================================
Xen ........ 10199.95 |============================================