We at Phoronix have long been supporters of the Fedora Core Project since the release of Yarrow (Fedora Core 1) and continuing with Tettnang, Heidelberg, and Stentz. Sticking with Red Hat's 9-month release interval for the Fedora Project, we are on the heals of the Fedora Core 5 launch, which is expected to be released on March 15. Striking the Internet this week was the final test build of Fedora Core 5, which also marks the continual freeze of the development process except for fixing critical bugs. With that said, today we have delivered our first Phoronix examination of Fedora 5 as well as the first official benchmarks coming out for this next release. Our primary focus today is on its benchmarking performance with our long-standing platter of tests at Phoronix, as well as seeing if Fedora Core 5 is truly ready for prime time.