HW compatibility research: are intel i5 graphics and realtek net/audio hassle-free?

[Lev Olshvang]

On 12/15/2010 07:25 PM, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 6:06 PM, geoffrey mendelson 
> <geoffreymendelson at gmail.com <mailto:geoffreymendelson at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     There are plenty of them around. No one wants them because you can
>     buy a new computer with 1g of DDR2 or DDR3 RAM for less money than
>     1g alone of DDR(1) RAM.
>
>
> Exactly.
>
>     There are two different Intel Graphics chip sets. I don't know
>     which is which, but a quick search should answer the question. The
>     earlier ones are chips that Intel bought a license to manufacture.
>     They are not very good in general and have closed source drivers.
>     This makes them OK for Windows, a problem for Linux. The second
>     are the newer ones Intel designed and builds.
>
>
> Well, i5-650 is supposed to be a member of the Clarkdale family, and 
> its little brother (i3-530) was reviewed, e.g., here
>
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzkwOA 
> <http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzkwOA>
>
> - driver problems reported, GPU hangs, etc. But the date is Jan 22, 
> 2010 - maybe there has been driver progress in the last 11 months?
>

My 2 cents:
I personally have ASUS P7H55 M-Pro with i3-530 processor + 4GB RAM( 
bought at KSP for ~1400 NIS)  running kernels 2.6.32- 3.6.36.2
Although the latest 2.6.36.2 still continues to patch intel chipset I915 
(drm patches) I did not noticed any problem with graphics.

The only issue I have is a sound :

     in 2.6.32  no hdmi sound,  alsamixer did  not recognize sound card
     in 2.6.36 - no sound at all, alsamixer shows too much non-existent 
controls but no hdmi output, it thinks it had Intel IbexPeak HDMI chip

I think i will post it in separate post, because I slipped from a subject

> Intel's support/download page does not say a word about Linux - there 
> are drivers for every Windows in the Galaxy, but there don't seem to 
> be any proprietary Intel HD Linux drivers.
>
> Oron, can you comment? ;-)
>
>     As for buying an I5 processor, there are newer I3's with similar
>     performance (for example 3gHz instead of 3.6gHz) for a lot less money.
>
>
> Indeed, i3-540 3.06GHz is ILS505, while i5-650 3.20GHz is ILS815 at 
> KSP. From what I see, the latter has VT-d that I may want to play with 
> (or maybe not) that comes with Intel TXT ("trusted execution 
> technology"), unfortunately, and Turbo Boost Frequency that sounds 
> nice to have.
>
> Various benchmarks that I saw (lies, damned lies, statistics, and 
> benchmarks) seem to indicate a difference in overall performance, but 
> not all that much.
>
> Thanks for pointing this out.
>
>
>     As for realtek, they tend to have cheap chips, which generallty
>     work well. If you are concerend about support, check the exact
>     model number of the chip as they keep changing them and the linux
>     drivers do not always "keep up".
>
>     When you buy a mobo make sure you are getting one that supports
>     full 64 bit addressing.
>
>
> The H55 chipset seems OK in this respect - 
> http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/322169.pdf
>
>     Be warned that most of the current production really cheap (around
>     600 NIS) LCD screens only have VGA ports. 
>
>
> My LCD has a DVI port, but I never bothered to get a cable.
>
>     There are not a lot of things that run on Linux that use the extra
>     acceleration in expensive graphic cards, on the other hand if you
>     are also going to run Windows on it
>
>
> Not unless it is in a VM for some as yet unidentified specific purpose.
>
>     (see my other comment below) and play high end games (Fallout New
>     Vegas anyone?) you will need an extra "hot" graphics card. 
>
>
> No, I did say games were out of scope.
>
>     If you plan on running Windows on it, then IMHO you should buy a
>     name brand such as HP, Packard Bell, etc. The difference in cost
>     between them and a roll-your-own system is about the cost of a
>     Windows license. If you do not plan on running Windows on it, it
>     pays IMHO to buy a "local" company's product, e.g. Ivory or KSP
>     and avoid the extra cost.
>
>
> No Windows or Mac OSX, so I'll stick to KSP or Ivory who seem to have 
> competitive prices. Besides, I don't like HP for various reasons, and 
> I wouldn't touch PB (they still exist?!) with a ten foot pole. ;-)
>
> Thanks, Geoff,
>
> -- 
> Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org <mailto:pub at goldshmidt.org>
>
>
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