[wellylug] GPU ideology vs performance

[Grant McLean]

On Sun, 2010-02-07 at 15:32 +1300, Atom Smasher wrote:
> will i pay a price of functionality by going with the intel? or, since 
> it's current hardware, even the "basic" option should be fine?

I have a laptop with an Intel graphics adapter and a desktop with an
Nvidia adapter.  I haven't noticed any performance difference between
them at all - perhaps I would if I played games.  I also don't have
fancy desktop effects enabled so take my opinion with a large grain of
salt.

Although Nvidia don't support the developers of the open source driver,
they do provide a pre-compiled proprietary driver for Linux.  The Ubuntu
distribution makes it trivial to install the proprietary Nvidia driver -
essentially you just click the 'Yes' button when the installer asks if
you want it.

On my desktop system I did run the open source 'nv' driver for a while.
Unfortunately the performance was noticeably slower for things like
dragging windows around.  I also had some problems with sections of the
screen not getting redrawn properly.

If you plan to run open source software only and you care about
performance then I'd say go with Intel - it will actually perform better
than Nvidia.  If you're OK with running a proprietary driver then Nvidia
is an option but I'm not sure whether you'd notice a performance
difference unless you were playing games.

Cheers
Grant