Intel Graphics Hit High Point With Linux 3.6 Kernel

Testing of the latest Linux 3.6 kernel that's presently under development has revealed some additional OpenGL performance improvements with Intel graphics, at least concerning the latest-generation "Ivy Bridge" processors.

The latest benchmarking from the soon-to-be-reviewed CompuLab Intense-PC, a low-power Ivy Bridge PC from the Linux-friendly vendor in Israel, is in the form of benchmarking the latest Intel Linux graphics components while comparing the Intel DRM driver found in recent kernel releases. Mesa 8.1-devel, xf86-video-intel 2.20.3+, and libdrm were all pulled from their respective Git repositories on 15 August from a clean Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit installation. The vanilla Linux 3.4 and 3.5 kernels were then compared to the latest Linux 3.6 development kernel from Git on 2012-08-15. The CompuLab system with its Intel Core i7 3517UE processor, Intel HD 4000 graphics, and 8GB of RAM was maintained the same throughout testing.

The DRM graphics driver changes in the Linux 3.6 kernel aren't too exciting overall, but at least some Intel graphics hardware is benefitting. The focus of the Intel DRM driver changes in this yet-to-be-released kernel include more work on enabling Intel's 2013 Haswell platform, Dynamic Parity Detection handling, preliminary context (context switching) support, and various bug-fixes and other changes.

This Linux kernel benchmarking with Intel graphics was facilitated in a fully automated and reproducible manner using the Phoronix Test Suite.