Is Ubuntu REALLY that much slower?

[tlmiller]

So, with the new laptop coming, I played some OS roulette. The old T495 now has KDE Neon on it since the existing KDE Neon machine, the 7490 is going to be going away after the 7415 arrives. As usual, I did Geekbench tests. So on the EXACT identical hardware, with (as close as possible given the 18 months between tests) the same-ish software...HUGE drop in performance going from Debian 10 to KDE Neon, aka Ubuntu 20.04 (which WAS based on Debian 10).

Debian 10, Geekbench 4.4.4:
4628 Single-Core Score
12425 Multi-Core Score

KDE Neon, Geekbench 4.4.4:
4369 Single-Core Score
11533 Multi-Core Score

Debian 10, Geekbench 5.2.4:
1004 Single-Core Score
3192 Multi-Core Score

KDE Neon, Geekbench 5.4.4:
921 Single-Core Score
2905 Multi-Core Score

Yeah, I know that any 2 runs will have a variance, sometimes rather large. But 5%/8% drop single core, and 7%/9% drops in multi-core seem...steep for the same hardware, doubly since the Geekbench 4 version is identical.

[crosscourt]

Q4OS KDE and Neon in use feel pretty much the same on all my hardware. Id say Geekbench is probably the issue rather than the distro.

[tlmiller]

Could be, but I've never had THAT huge a margin between 2 runs on the same hardware. That's literally an Intel generational gap in the 4th-7th generation chips...