When Benchmarks Meet Bugs: Intel vs. Linux Delivers Mixed Results

Authors at Phoronix conducted a new round of testing on the Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra 7 155H processor two years after its release. As with the Snapdragon X Elite, tests were run under Linux. Like the Snapdragon X Elite, the Intel processor demonstrated worse results than previously observed.

The difference was not as significant as it was with the Qualcomm platform, but the CPU still lost about 7% of its performance. This is an average figure, not only for the CPU but also for the iGPU. Importantly, the exact same Acer laptop was tested as two years ago since it is one of the author’s personal devices.

Performance changes are associated with updates to the Linux kernel, though it’s not clear exactly what has led to the performance drop. Potential causes could be certain security patches. Authors suggest one possible factor contributing to the performance decrease is the implementation of branch history injection (BHI) due to a vulnerability that has emerged over the past two years.

Recent reports indicate that the performance gap between Meteor Lake and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series is narrowing, but each has its strengths in different applications. Reviews highlight that while Meteor Lake shines in raw processing power, Snapdragon maintains efficiency and thermals, especially under ARM-optimized workloads.

Further investigation into the Linux kernel updates reveals certain patches aimed at closing speculative execution vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown, with the latest being BHI. These security-focused improvements, while vital, sometimes lead to efficiency trade-offs. This aligns with user reports of moderate performance reductions across various hardware throughout 2025.