Mac OS X Intel Graphics Still Outperform Linux

“In recent weeks we have been talking about Intel’s Linux
advancements as it concerns their latest “Sandy Bridge” generation
of processors with integrated graphics (and there are a few more
articles on the way), but how is their latest open-source driver
stack performing on the older generations of Intel integrated
graphics? Previously, the Intel Linux graphics have been the real
loser in our multi-OS comparisons, but is this still the case? At
least when comparing the Linux and Mac OS X performance on Intel
945 hardware, yes, the Mesa driver falls behind at OpenGL
acceleration.

“Today we have updated results to deliver that compare the
performance of Mac OS X 10.6.6, Ubuntu 10.10, and Ubuntu 11.04
Alpha 2 under an Apple Mac Mini with Intel GMA 950 / i945 graphics.
We also wanted to deliver results under Microsoft Windows 7
Professional SP1, but this older Mac Mini has EFI problems booting
Windows 7 x64 and we do not have a copy of the 32-bit version of
Windows 7. The Mac Mini has an Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 CPU, an Intel
945 Mobile + ICH7-M motherboard, 1GB of system memory, an 80GB
Hitachi HTS54258 SATA hard drive, and Intel GMA 950 integrated
graphics.

“With Mac OS X 10.6.6, there is the 10.6 kernel, X Server
1.4.2-apple56, OpenGL 1.4 support, and the Journaled HFS+
file-system. On Ubuntu 10.10 there is the Linux 2.6.35 kernel,
X.Org Server 1.9.0, xf86-video-intel 2.12.0 DDX, Mesa 7.9-devel, an
EXT4 file-system, and the GNOME desktop. Under Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 2
is the Linux 2.6.38 kernel, X.Org Server 1.10 RC1, xf86-video-intel
2.14.0, Mesa 7.10, an EXT4 file-system, and Canonical’s Unity
desktop. Each OS was left in its stock configuration.”

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