Ubuntu Now Often Leads Windows 7 On Intel SNB Graphics Performance

The synthetic GpuTest results had varied but overall the Windows and Linux versions tested were very competitive with one another.

When Intel Sandy Bridge hardware first launched, the Windows driver tended to lead over Linux but now two years later we're seeing the open-source Intel driver match -- or exceed -- the latest Intel Windows performance levels. With much of the driver code-base being shared across Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge / Haswell generations, this is also largely the same for newer Intel processors too. Our previous cross-OS Haswell testing showed competitive performance between Ubuntu Linux and Windows 8.1 while a new round of tests will be due with the Linux 3.14 kernel and forthcoming Mesa 10.1 release.

While the performance is in good shape, disappointing some Sandy Bridge owners has been the fact that upstream Intel Linux developers are no longer too interested in new features for SNB -- like implementing OpenGL Geometry Shaders, but that work will likely be left up to the community.