Ubuntu 14.10 VirtualBox vs. KVM Virt Early Ubuntu 14.04 LTS virtualization benchmarks on KVM versus bare metal versus Oracle VM VirtualBox. More tests on the way. Testing by Michael Larabel of Phoronix.com for a future article. Bare Metal: Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X @ 3.60GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: MSI X79MA-GD45 (MS-7738) v1.0, Chipset: Intel Xeon E5 v2/Core, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 1000GB Seagate ST1000DX001-1CM1, Graphics: Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 4870 512MB, Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL S2409W, Network: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 OS: Ubuntu 14.04, Kernel: 3.12.0-7-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 7.1.2, Display Server: X Server 1.14.4, Display Driver: radeon 7.2.0, OpenGL: 3.1 Mesa 10.0.0 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.8, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1920x1080 QEMU-KVM: Processor: QEMU Virtual 1.7.0 @ 3.60GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: Bochs, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 6144MB, Disk: 81GB, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Generic 1af4 ID 22, Network: Red Hat Virtio device OS: Ubuntu 14.04, Kernel: 3.12.0-7-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 7.1.2, Display Server: X Server 1.14.4, Display Driver: cirrus 1.5.2, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 10.0.0 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.8, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: QEMU 1.7.0 VirtualBox 4.3.4: Processor: Intel Core i7-4960X @ 3.59GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: Oracle VirtualBox v1.2, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 6144MB, Disk: 94GB VBOX HDD, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Intel 82801AA AC 97 Audio, Network: Intel 82540EM Gigabit OS: Ubuntu 14.04, Kernel: 3.12.0-7-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 7.1.2, Display Server: X Server 1.14.4, Display Driver: modesetting 0.8.1, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 10.0.0 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.8, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: VirtualBox AIO-Stress 0.21 Test: Random Write MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 95.46 |===================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 85.49 |=============================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 66.79 |===================================== FS-Mark 3.3 Test: 1000 Files, 1MB Size Files/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 16.70 |=========== QEMU-KVM ......... 15.18 |========== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 77.32 |===================================================== FS-Mark 3.3 Test: 5000 Files, 1MB Size, 4 Threads Files/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 53.00 |==================== QEMU-KVM ......... 26.80 |========== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 135.40 |==================================================== FS-Mark 3.3 Test: 4000 Files, 32 Sub Dirs, 1MB Size Files/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 20.33 |============== QEMU-KVM ......... 32.58 |======================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 75.97 |===================================================== Compile Bench 0.6 Test: Compile MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 176.47 |===================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 246.08 |==================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 123.55 |========================== Compile Bench 0.6 Test: Initial Create MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 164.58 |==================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 165.70 |==================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 73.25 |======================= Compile Bench 0.6 Test: Read Compiled Tree MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 851.08 |==================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 640.46 |======================================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 140.91 |========= PostMark 1.51 Disk Transaction Performance TPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 4491 |====================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 4054 |================================================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 1094 |============= Stream 2013-01-17 Type: Copy MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 16718.56 |================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 14851.00 |============================================ Stream 2013-01-17 Type: Scale MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 12720.82 |================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 11129.83 |============================================ Stream 2013-01-17 Type: Triad MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 14358.86 |================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 12294.48 |=========================================== Stream 2013-01-17 Type: Add MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 14206.94 |================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 12229.28 |=========================================== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: G-HPL GFLOPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 65.86 |===================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 12.36 |========== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: G-Ffte GFLOPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 3.16790 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 0.16530 |=== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: EP-DGEMM GFLOPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 6.52924 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 3.88626 |============================== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: G-Ptrans GB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 1.61334 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 0.09879 |=== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: EP-STREAM Triad GB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 1.18694 |================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 3.36996 |=================================================== HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: G-Random Access GUP/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 0.06914 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 0.00032 | HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: Random Ring Latency usecs < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 0.78240 | VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 544.37933 |================================================= HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: Random Ring Bandwidth GB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 0.55131 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 0.01142 |= HPC Challenge 1.4.3 Test / Class: Max Ping Pong Bandwidth MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 12918.83 |================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 1906.83 |======= Parboil 2.5 Test: OpenMP LBM Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 238.80 |======================================= QEMU-KVM ......... 249.88 |========================================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 317.39 |==================================================== Parboil 2.5 Test: OpenMP CUTCP Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 9.45 |===================== QEMU-KVM ......... 10.72 |======================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 24.06 |===================================================== Parboil 2.5 Test: OpenMP Stencil Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 26.42 |================================ QEMU-KVM ......... 30.74 |===================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 43.74 |===================================================== Rodinia 2.4 Test: OpenMP Leukocyte Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 22.88 |================================ QEMU-KVM ......... 31.23 |============================================ VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 37.43 |===================================================== Rodinia 2.4 Test: OpenMP CFD Solver Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 63.11 |================================ QEMU-KVM ......... 101.21 |=================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 103.66 |==================================================== Rodinia 2.4 Test: OpenMP Streamcluster Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 32.65 |==================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 35.53 |======================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 47.53 |===================================================== TTSIOD 3D Renderer 2.2z Phong Rendering With Soft-Shadow Mapping FPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 169.33 |==================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 71.86 |====================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 67.46 |===================== VP8 libvpx Encoding 1.1.0 vpxenc Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 30.66 |===================================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 22.23 |====================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 3.10 |===== x264 2013-06-08 H.264 Video Encoding Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 237.84 |==================================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 115.69 |========================= Timed Linux Kernel Compilation 3.1 Time To Compile Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 59.51 |======= QEMU-KVM ......... 64.39 |======= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 453.56 |==================================================== C-Ray 1.1 Total Time Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 17.27 |=================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 18.63 |====================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 26.21 |===================================================== Parallel BZIP2 Compression 1.1.6 256MB File Compression Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 4.74 |======================================= QEMU-KVM ......... 5.00 |========================================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 6.54 |====================================================== Open Porous Media 2013-11-26 OPM Benchmark: Upscale-Relperm Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 54.71 |================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 55.91 |=================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 84.81 |===================================================== FFmpeg 2.0 H.264 HD To NTSC DV Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ....... 16.55 |===================================== QEMU-KVM ......... 17.35 |======================================= VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 23.40 |===================================================== Hierarchical INTegration 1.0 Test: FLOAT QUIPs > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ....... 337324419.73 |============================================== VirtualBox 4.3.4 . 325069466.83 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