Intel HD Graphics 2000/2500/3000 Linux 3.13 + Mesa 10.1 Update
In continuing from this weekend's article that offered up fresh benchmarks of Intel Sandy Bridge & Ivy Bridge CPUs with the latest Linux code atop Ubuntu 13.10, out today are new graphics benchmarks using the very latest open-source Intel Linux graphics driver code and trying out CPUs with HD Graphics 2000, 2500, 3000. The open-source Intel graphics driver has certainly matured a lot since the debut of Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs!
As with this weekend's Linux benchmark results, the purpose of this article is to basically release new Intel Linux graphics performance numbers for the older Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors. We still benchmark these CPUs from time-to-time, but most of our focus these days is on Haswell (and coming soon, Broadwell) so I found it time with the recent Linux 3.13 kernel and Mesa 10.1 developments to put out some new reference benchmarks for multiple SNB/IVB CPUs. Haswell CPUs weren't compared against these CPUs due to the different socket so the CPUs can't be compared from the same system. For those interested in the latest Haswell Linux graphics performance, there are many Phoronix articles providing plenty of up-to-date information.
The four tested processors included an Intel Core i3 2120 (dual-core Sandy Bridge CPU with Hyper Threading; 3.3GHz clock speed) with HD 2000 Graphics, Core i5 2400S (quad-core low-power Sandy Bridge with a 2.5GHz base frequency and 3.3GHz Turbo Frequency) with HD 2000 Graphics, Core i5 2500K (quad-core Sandy Bridge with 3.3GHz base frequency and 3.7GHz Turbo Frequency) with HD 3000 Graphics, and Core i5 3470 (quad-core Ivy Bridge with 3.2GHz base frequency and 3.6GHz Turbo Frequency) with HD 2500 Graphics. Ubuntu 13.10 x86_64 was the operating system in use while it was running with the Linux 3.13 Git kernel and the Mesa 10.1-devel Oibaf PPA drivers for the most recent Intel Linux graphics capabilities.
The other big reason for carrying out the updated SNB/IVB Mesa + Linux kernel benchmarks is to encourage the community to see how their own system(s) are comparing to these results. By installing the Phoronix Test Suite and running phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1312048-SO-IVYSANDYM04 you can see how the results we're about to share compare against your system with all tests being fully-automated from test download/installation to test execution to result graph generation. It's very easy and if you run into any problems feel free to stop by our forums.
Last but not least before getting to the updated Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge benchmark results is that the Intel Mesa DRI driver still only supports OpenGL 3.1 for Sandy Bridge graphics. The GL 3.1 limitation is due to the driver not yet supporting OpenGL Geometry Shaders on anything older than Ivy Bridge. Community developers are left up to coming up with patches for GS support if they so desire. The Ivy Bridge and Haswell OpenGL compliance in the latest Mesa code is currently at OpenGL 3.3 as of Mesa 10.0.