Intel Core i5 6500: A Great Skylake CPU For $200, Works Well On Linux

Next up are some graphics tests for the Core i7 4790K Haswell, Core i7 5775C Broadwell, Core i5 6500 Skylake, and Core i5 6600K Skylake. Only these processor's Intel graphics were tested for this initial comparison due to being short on time prior to publishing this article. More Core i5 6500 Linux graphics results will obviously come in the days/weeks ahead as I do more Mesa/kernel tests, run Skylake on other Linux distributions, etc.

For the extremely basic OpenArena test, the Core i5 6500 ran noticeably ahead of the Haswell i7-4790K while came just behind the i5-6600K. To no surprise, the Core i7 5775C by far offered the fastest graphics performance thanks to its Intel Iris Pro 6200 while the three other CPUs have HD Graphics.

Under Linux, Skylake CPUs with HD Graphics are basically fine for running lightweight games at 1080p or less, but really shouldn't be considered for a Linux/SteamOS gaming box unless opting for a CPU with Iris Graphics. The Skylake Gen9 graphics are at least more than powerful enough for modern composited Linux desktop environments, basic WebGL usage, video playback is sufficient when using Intel's VA-API back-end, and there's also OpenCL via Beignet.