Hello,

I currently have an Asrock ConRoe945G-DVI, thus an integrated Intel 945G chipset.

I need something more powerfull for Need for Speed Carbon (commercial) and Rigs of Rods (free). Besides, I need:
- PCI Express (because of the motherboard),
- S-Video or Video (because my TV is an old cathodic with SCART/video),
- DVI (because of my current 22″ LCD monitor).
Finally, given the choice, I prefer low noise and low electricity consumption over unneeded performance (the two titles I mentioned are not very demanding).

I first thought I'd never find a card with both S-Video output and PCI Express format. But looking harder, it seems quite a number of older AMD, and a few older NVidia are still available for sell.

Basically, it seems to me the best choices still to be found are:
- 65€: the Radeon HD 4730 (like this: HD 4730 example)
- 100€: the Radeon HD 4850 (HD 4850 example) or the NVidia GTS 250 (GTS 250 example).

Even though I don't want to buy a gaming beast of a card (I play very few games), I'm the kind to change of PC every 8 years, and of graphics card barely more... So I don't want too lame a card!
I have zero experience with graphics cards and PC games (NFS is the first “modern” commercial game I have), and I fear the HD 4730 is already too old to last until my TV becomes HD (five years from now?).

What do you think? What would you advise?

Yves.

I think...

The best graphics solution for linux at the moment is a Nvidia card with the Nvidia proprietary driver. What is your argument for choosing Radeon?

I would go with one of the radeons. I only choose hardware for which there are open source drivers, and the open source drivers for the radeon HD cards are quite capable of running compiz, playing ut2004, neverball, openarena, nexuiz, and a number of other games.

I think I'd rather buy a Radeon than a NVidia for the exact reason adamk75 said. Although NFS is a Windows game, all else is done in Linux on this PC (I play Torcs and I'd like to play RoR), and I value a free driver a lot.

Yves.

Any advice for Radeon HD 4730 vs. Radeon HD 4850 ?
BTW, how's Linux support for the TV-out in both brands?

Yves.

I've quite happily used an HD4850, but have no experience weith the HD4730. I'd take a look at the specs for both and decide which one is appropriate for your needs.

As for TV-out... I do believe it is now supported via KMS (which means you will need a very recent kernel, mesa, libdrm, and xf86-video-ati). In fact, for 3D support, you'll need very recent versions of all of those anyway :-) I am almost certain that Mandriva does not have the necessary components, so you'd probably have to compile them from source.

Adam

I bought the HD4850. It seemed to give more for its price, from what I could gather on Internet.
Thank you adamk75 and thorkelljarl for helping.

Yves.