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

With the ioquake3-powered OpenArena game, the performance was mightily impressive for Intel compared to their performance from previous generations of hardware and a classic Mesa driver going up against Gallium3D drivers and the proprietary Catalyst driver. Across the tested resolutions, the Core i5 2500K graphics atop Intel's only Linux graphics driver for this hardware had performed close to the speed of the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card when it was being powered by the Catalyst driver. Compared to the Radeon HD 5450 on the Gallium3D driver, Intel's driver and Sandy Bridge graphics beat it easily. The Nouveau Gallium3D driver failed to properly run OpenArena.

When having Phoronix Test Suite 3.0-Iveland take the frame-rates from the highest tested resolution (1920 x 1080), throw them into a bar graph ordered by performance, and to highlight the Core i5 2500K, we see another view at how the situation stands. With OpenArena, the Intel Core i5 2500K performs right alongside the Radeon HD 5450 on the Catalyst driver and the Radeon HD 4650 on the Gallium3D driver. The Core i5 2500K easily beats the Radeon HD 4550 and Radeon HD 5450 graphics cards when using their open-source Gallium3D driver.