Intel Sandy Bridge Linux Testing Is Coming Real Soon

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Sandy Bridge Linux Testing Is Coming Real Soon

Following a challenging week for Intel's Sandy Bridge Linux support in other publications getting the open-source graphics drivers working, Intel came forward to supply us with a Sandy Bridge processor so we can carry out the tests using the needed Linux Kernel / Mesa / DDX / libva Git code. We don't even need to wait for Intel to send out any hardware, as it was hand-delivered today during a meeting with them...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODk5NQ

[d2kx]

Good timing, as Mesa 7.10 has been released.

[baryluk]

Nice surprise from Intel! Looks to be a big chip.

Patiently waiting for results, and wondering which model this is on the picture

[pipe13]

Er... so what's it like, having this kind of corner on the market?

[7oby]

The picture of the Sandy Bridge CPU suggests you have a preproduction ES (Engineering Sample) version.

There is a commit, which might mean that Sandy Bridge ES performance is poorer than that of the production version:

Don't use hardware acceleration on Sandybridge rev 07 hardware or earlier.
[...]
+
+ /* Sandybridge rev07 locks up easily, even with the
+ * BLT ring workaround in place.
+ * Thus use shadowfb by default.
+ */

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/commit/?id=c2fac6ca108734dd9566570b15f01cc476fa53dc

The commit is included in the latest intel driver version 2.14.0. If you have the chance to find out whether this will impact results, I'd appreciate if you investigate.