I have been running my machine without GPU for a while with decent results (no lag for a decent internet use, videos read smoothly and 2D gaming is OK).
But I decided to see what I could get with an actual GPU, and acquired a cheap Radeon 5450 low profile card from a local store, just to try it out.
After installing the open source drivers, I can see absolutely no difference performance-wise. Benchmarking tools showed results in the very low end, and games run with very bad performances, not anything near what such GPU should allow. Overall it all feels like the GPU isn't computing anything. This is a fresh install with no history of other drivers.
Is it something with the card (though I can read here it is supposedly supported https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver) or else ?
Configuration : CPU Intel® Pentium(R) CPU G2020 @ 2.90GHz × 2 RAM : 8Go OS : Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit GPU : Intel Radeon HD5450
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD CEDAR OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.4 OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20