I assumed the tests were were ran on the new microcode version, as it was released a week before the tests, but it seems that Ubuntu didn't ship that update yet

I assumed the tests were were ran on the new microcode version, as it was released a week before the tests, but it seems that Ubuntu didn't ship that update yet. Their security advisory says that > Optimized L1 data cache flushing is available via intel-microcode updates. The updated kernels implement a software fallback cache flushing mechanism for processors that have not received microcode updates. It looks like the kernel will say "VMX: conditional cache flushes" on the new microcode so according to the Phoronix screenshots, they were running the older version. Maybe we'll see a new set of benchmarks.