The Open-Source Linux Graphics Card Showdown

[Gusar]

If I'm not mistken aren't Intel's GPUs just a 2nd chip on the same CPU package while AMD's have both as part of the same chip?

No. The Clarkdale/Ironlake combo was what you describe (hence the different name for CPU and GPU), but Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are a combined CPU+GPU chip, just like AMD APU.

[Luke_Wolf]

No. The Clarkdale/Ironlake combo was what you describe (hence the different name for CPU and GPU), but Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are a combined CPU+GPU chip, just like AMD APU.

Actually no what he's talking about is CPU+GPU on the same CPU die, his question relates to it being two chips on the same die, or one that's just one chip, and at least Sandy Bridge it is still 2 chips on one package according to the analysis, with a pipe between them, I haven't seen an analysis of Ivy Bridge yet, but since it's a die shrink + more units I would imagine that it would be the same for that too

[Hamish Wilson]

So, in conclusion: at the moment the free Intel drivers are the best at using the most of the hardware.

Sounds fair enough to me. I am still happy with my Radeon HD 4670 though - I like hardware with a developing future.

Still, credit where credit is due - well done Intel.

[Gusar]

Sandy Bridge it is still 2 chips on one package according to the analysis, with a pipe between them

Hmm, can someone (preferably an Intel dev) confirm that? If I'm wrong, I'd like to know, so that I won't be saying wrong stuff in the future anymore.

[smitty3268]

Colors are funny things to work with mathematically. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that you have to treat colors as THREE numbers, not just ONE.

To make it even more complicated, the human eye is naturally more sensitive to certain colors than others, so it makes sense to divide into smaller regions in certain spectrums and not others.

[smitty3268]

Hmm, can someone (preferably an Intel dev) confirm that? If I'm wrong, I'd like to know, so that I won't be saying wrong stuff in the future anymore.

No, i'm pretty sure starting with Sandy Bridge it's 1 chip on 1 package.

There is just a pipe between the 2 sections of the chip, so communication between the 2 is exactly the same as if it was on a different chip, but it's built as one.

AMD iGPUs are the same. Actually, not quite - Sandy/Ivy Bridge share the L3 cache with the GPU, while AMD doesn't have that ability. Unless Trinity adds that, which it might.

Eventually they will get better integrated, and you'll probably see things like the CPU transferring floating point operations onto the GPU hardware, but i don't know how far out that is.

[apholux]

HD4000 linux vs. winsows; windows OGL3.3?

could we have comparison between Ivybridge OGL linux and Windows drivers? Some time back there was such comparison provided on phoronix for sandybridge and it was very helpful. Thanks!

I found info here on geeks3d.com that Ivybridge Windows driver supports OGL3.3. Do you see same result?

Thanks again!

[Kano]

I think only SNB shared the 3rd level cache, IVB does not.

[devius]

Obligatory post making fun of some random typo in the article that will never be corrected:

Holy thermo-nuclear GPU Batman!! The Radeon HD 4670 idles at 766 Watts??? Surely it must produce a truckload of heat

[archibald]

Colors are funny things to work with mathematically. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that you have to treat colors as THREE numbers, not just ONE.

It's worth remembering that there are different ways to represent colour: the way you are describing is the RGB colour space, and should be treated as 3 separate numbers for (hopefully) obvious reasons. If you use the HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSV_color_space) colour space then it is reasonable to fix the saturations and values and choose equidistant values for the hue.