Intel Clarkdale Linux Graphics Performance

Beginning with our video CPU usage test profile, the CPU average was right in the middle between the four Radeon graphics cards that were tested, but its peak usage was the lowest. The CPU usage though was not significantly different and with most any graphics card and driver, you will be fine with video playback when using an Intel Clarkdale CPU clocked just less than 3.00GHz with four logical cores. Intel's Linux driver also supports XvMC, which is marginally better than X-Video, where as the ATI Linux drivers do not offer such support. Though it will be nice once VDPAU / VA-API support is available through a Gallium3D driver.

The open-source ATI driver stack has a hard time with Warsow and runs at just a few frames per second. Even though the Radeon HD 4670 graphics processor is certainly superior to that of the Clarkdale, due to these Radeon problems in their classic Mesa driver the performance is currently stifled. This issue is similar to OpenArena where this non-demanding open-source game currently runs at about one frame per second when using the Radeon stack. The Core i3 graphics certainly led to a playable experience with Warsow when running at 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768, but at 1280 x 1024 and 1920 x 1080 the average frame-rate was below 30 FPS.

The World of Padman game, which has no real issues with either the open-source Intel or ATI drivers on Linux, shows the Intel Core i3 performing at almost the same exact level as the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO graphics card. The Radeon X1950PRO, Radeon HD 4670, and even the vintage Radeon X800XL were all multiple times faster. Though it looks like there is better optimization work that can be had with the R600/700 3D support, still as even the Radeon X800XL (an R400-based GPU) was outperforming the Radeon HD 4670. In terms of game playability for the Core i3 graphics processor with this game that's powered by the ioquake3 engine, she will run fine at 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 but above that you may start to notice some unsatisfactory performance.

VDrift, an OpenGL drift racing game, is really demanding on Mesa and does not run too well outside of the binary Linux graphics drivers. For what it's worth though, the Core i3 started out being faster than the ATI graphics cards when at 800 x 600 with a frame-rate of 15 FPS but then by 1920 x 1080 had dropped down to 7 FPS. The Radeon HD 2600 PRO and Radeon X800XL graphics cards were much slower than the Core i3 IGP and the Radeon X1950PRO and Radeon HD 4670.