Chris,
I know that you speak from the standpoint of a person which tries to sell the
most stable hardware providing the best experience with Trisquel.
Thus Intel-based hardware with open-source drivers from the manufacturer are
a valid option.
But with Noveau and my rusty 9800GT we have to be fair. Michael used one of
the top end CPUs of Intel (I7 3770K) for the reference benchmarks.
This CPU alone costs ~ 320€ (at least here in Germany). A typical Ivy
Bridge motherboard will start at ~ 100€.
Now please compare this to my system specs (AMD Dualcore with 2x2.7GHz / 4GB
RAM). A typical AMD X2 with 2x3GHz sells now for around 50€. Add a typical
ASRock/ASUS/MSI value mainboard to this for 50€ plus a dual channel 8GB
DDR3 kit for around 30€ and you are set. As indicated 9800GT are sold with
super silent replacement coolers (e.g. Zalman VF900) for ~20€ including
shipment at the bay.
So even if this is a bit unfair (used hardware plus cheap components) we have
a fully ready system for around 150€.
Now lets have a look down at my benches:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204212-BY-TRISQUEL546
Xonotic runs at ultimate quality in 1280x1024 with around 40 FPS. At lower
details (effect quality high) it runs at 65 FPS. All this with a stock
installation of Trisquel 5.5 and the included noveau. No driver tweaking or
installation of bleeding edge Noveau drivers but all Vanilla Trisquel.
Now lets look at Michaels benches with Xonotic in high details:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_ivy_gpushow&num=5
The 9800GT runs at 1080p with 55 FPS which is explainable because the
fillrate needs to be much higher than with my 1280x1024. If a card like mine
"represents the crippled child" of the NVidia family when running with Noveau
and still can compete with a > 400€ CPU / mobo combo then I am happy with
this cripple :)
>One last comment on the AMD powered systems. I'm not a fan of these systems
>because they are hostile to free software. You generally can't get an AMD
CPU
>without ATI graphics except on maybe the high end.
Speaking frankly love to free software does not fill my wallet. If you are on
a budget a PC system based on AMD with ATI or NVidia GPU will almost always
be a few bucks cheaper than the Intel counterpart.
And you always get an AMD system free from AMD integrated graphics. Simply
checkout the standard X2, X3, X4 and X6 CPUs. As shown above they mostly go
by at a lower price tag. I write this not to de-value Intel-based systems or
sound like an AMD fanboy but to highlight the alternatives to Intel-only
systems when running Trisquel.
I will do some Xonotic benches on my AMD E350-based system with the NVidia
9500GT and check how this turns out.
Regards,
Holger
