Comment # 1 on bug 1142977 from Stefan Dirsch

I should have mentioning that one of the goals of Wayland has been a tearfree
desktop (Wayland session can be selected in GDM login screen). If Wayland works
nicely on your laptop is a different question though. 

Back to X.org. intel X driver supports tearfree, but is no longer recommded for
current Intel GPUs. :-(

       Option "TearFree" "boolean"
              Disable or enable TearFree updates. This option forces X to per-
              form all rendering to a backbuffer prior to updating the  actual
              display. It requires an extra memory allocation the same size as
              a framebuffer, the occasional extra copy,  and  requires  Damage
              tracking.  Thus  enabling  TearFree  requires more memory and is
              slower (reduced throughput) and introduces  a  small  amount  of
              output latency, but it should not impact input latency. However,
              the update to the screen is then  performed  synchronously  with
              the vertical refresh of the display so that the entire update is
              completed before the display starts its refresh.  That  is  only
              one  frame is ever visible, preventing an unsightly tear between
              two visible and differing frames. Note that this replicates what
              the  compositing  manager should be doing, however TearFree will
              redirect the compositor updates (and those of fullscreen  games)
              directly on to the scanout thus incurring no additional overhead
              in the composited case. Also note that not all compositing  man-
              agers  prevent  tearing,  and  if the outputs are rotated, there
              will still be tearing without TearFree enabled.

              Default: TearFree is disabled.

In order to switch to intel you would need to install xf86-video-intel package
and restart you desktop. I'm afraid you'll also need to reconfigure
your monitor setup (intel uses differnt output names than modeset driver). And
you also would need the following 
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf snippet for tearfree.

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Default Device"
  Driver "intel"
  Option "TearFree" "on"
EndSection

I will open a ticket upstream, if/when tearfree in modeset driver is planned?
Since it's available in intel/amdgpu/radeon driver, it should also
be possible to implement in modeset driver.