When It Works, Intel Core i5 2500K Graphics On Linux Are Fast!

“After a month of headaches for Intel and myself, there are now
Sandy Bridge graphics benchmark results from the Intel Core i5
2500K under Linux to finally publish. Sandy Bridge was a tough
launch for Intel in terms of the Linux coverage with the media
having problems building a working driver stack and then when I
finally got my hands on a CPU, I ran into an entirely different set
of show-stopping problems. The developers still have not solved the
biggest original issue yet, but Intel sent out a new motherboard
and another CPU and it happens to “just work” nicely under Linux.
When using the latest bits of their open-source Intel Linux
graphics code, the performance on the Core i5 2500K is actually
quite impressive compared to other open-source Linux drivers.

“First, to recap the important milestones in the Sandy Bridge
Linux saga to date, before sharing these much anticipated
results:

“- It was in February of 2010 that I reported Intel has started
work on Linux graphics driver support for Sandy Bridge. Not only
were they starting on the support 11 months in advance, but even
the source code was available from the start and not keeping it in
an internal repository until the kernel DRM, DDX, and Mesa support
was ready.”

Complete Story