Graphics

[GeoffF100]

I had screen tearing problems on my number 2 (12 year old) PC with Intel GMA 950 graphics running Lubuntu. I turned off smooth scrolling in Firefox, which greatly alleviated the problem on a 1440 x 900 monitor. The screen tearing was much worse on my number 1 (4 year old i5 4460) PC with Intel HD 4600 graphics and a FHD monitor. I found a fix:

https://learnubuntumate.weebly.com/scre ... hics.html#

It worked on my number 2 PC. No screen tearing. No need to turn off smooth scrolling. No problems with the test videos. It is necessary to reboot before the fix works, so I was unable to test it with a live USB on my number 1 PC. Nonetheless, I expect that it works on there too.

Here are some Passmark graphics scores:

Intel GMA 950: 116
Intel HD 4600: 715
Intel UHD 630: 1354
AMD Vega 3: 1063
AMD Vega 8: 1739
NVIDIA GT 710: 688
NVIDIA GT 1030: 2306

My number 1 PC clearly has much better graphics than my number 2 PC. The Athlon integrated graphics is about 50% faster than the graphics in my number 1 PC. The latest Intel desktop integrated graphics is nearly twice as fast as the graphics in my number 1 PC. The Ryzen 3 integrated graphics is little faster still. A £30 graphics card is about as fast as the integrated graphics in my number 1 PC. A £60 graphics card is about a third faster than the Ryzen 3 integrated graphics.

PS I am using my number 2 PC right now. It is very nippy for web browsing and LibreOffice.

[PrincessB]

Isn't it amazing how quickly things change.

Intel UHD 630: 1354 - I've got that one in the smaller unit.

Nvidia 1050ti: 6060 - I bought it for that smaller unit and it wouldn't fit (no space for a double width card) the power supply got in the way.

I'll admit a preference to graphics cards that don't need external power connectors and draw the required current from the PCI bus itself. This limits you to 75watts and offer performance levels which for most people should be fine.

I must get around to selling some of these, In the inventory, I've got a venerable AMD HD7750: 1,713 - along with a Nvidia 750ti: 3,771

The Intel UHD 630 graphics are actually rather good for desktop/business work at HD resolution, when you hit them with a 3D task (like Diablo 3) they fall apart.

The passmark numbers are a bit misleading as you can read another set of stats that generally show that the differences are more synthetic that real for those who don't play games. A HD7750 will thrash the UHD630 when you give it something to work on .

Passmark may well use new instruction sets to get its final result and may well be using tests that benefit the newer graphics cards which tend to boast impressive amounts of memory. The 7750 has 1GB, the 750ti 2GB, the 1050ti 4GB and these should be considered entry level cards, 6 or 8GB is not unusual.

PS I am using my number 2 PC right now. It is very nippy for web browsing and LibreOffice.

With enough memory, an SSD and a graphics card it would fly along in Windows too. The i5 processors are brilliant. If you were feeling playful, you could identify your motherboard and see if it would accept a more interesting processor:

#1 Daughters machine started life with with an i3 @ 3.6GHz and when the prices second hand dropped now sports an Intel Xeon 1280v3 which is terrific. A quad core with hyperthreading that can boost to 4.0GHz, 2TB SSD drive, GTX1060 (6GB) Graphics and enough cooling to make it almost silent. Not cutting edge by any means, but its quick.

Regards,

B.

[GeoffF100]

PS I am using my number 2 PC right now. It is very nippy for web browsing and LibreOffice.

With enough memory, an SSD and a graphics card it would fly along in Windows too. The i5 processors are brilliant.

Number 2 machine is the twelve year old one. After my upgrades, Core 2 Duo E6700, 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 RAM and a modern SSD (but running on SATA II). Nonetheless, it flies along running Firefox (on most websites) and LibreOffice. The monitor is 1440x900 IPS:

https://www.ebuyer.com/794191-aoc-i2080 ... or-i2080sw

I got it from ebuyer for £49.97, and it is amazing for the money. 1440x900 is mostly enough. The original 1024x768 was a little too restrictive.

I seem to have fixed the graphics problem. The main limitation appears to be the 2 GB RAM, but that is the maximum that the motherboard will take. Nonetheless, with Lubuntu 18.04, I usually have most of the second GB still available. It is annoyingly good when I fancy building a new machine.

[GeoffF100]

Passmark may well use new instruction sets to get its final result and may well be using tests that benefit the newer graphics cards which tend to boast impressive amounts of memory.

With Passmark, users download the Passmark software, run it on their machines an upload the results. There have already been a few incarnations of Vega 3, for example, and the benchmarks for all of them seem to have been rolled into one. The same applies to Vega 8, and perhaps to the discrete graphics cards too. We cannot expect too much accuracy here. Nonetheless, Passmark is very useful for giving quick assessment for the capabilities of a device without having to go through all the benchmarks.