Linux 3.5 Can Massively Boost AMD Radeon Graphics Performance

Running Xonotic with high quality image settings at 1920 x 1080 also resulted in performance improvements across the board on the Linux 3.5 kernel, except for the Radeon HD 6450.

If you are an Evergreen/Northern Islands hardware owner with a higher-end model (not a crippled version like the HD 6450) on the open-source Radeon Linux Gallium3D driver stack, the Linux 3.5 kernel should prove to certainly be exciting. Seeing double-digit performance gains out of the kernel upgrade is excellent and there are still other areas of optimization ahead: PCI Express 2.0, Hyper-Z, 2D color tiling, etc. If only these other features can stabilize and get flipped on by default... Right now, the Radeon HD 5000/6000 series of graphics cards is shaping up to be a "sweet spot" for open-source support while the newer Radeon HD 7000 series support is completely dysfunctional at the moment.