DDR2 graphics card with DDR system RAM

My PC has DDR 333 MHz system RAM. Can I upgrade to a graphics card with DDR2 memory or will the different memory types conflict?

You won't have any problems with a DDR2 card, at least as regards system memory.

It is my understanding that nVidia has their drivers in much better shape than ATI, and that might be a valid concern.

If I'm wrong about this. I'll happily stand corrected.

Go for it.

Enjoy.

This will not cause you any problems. The DDR2 the graphics card manufacturer is referring to is onboard the graphics card. The GPU chip on the card has it's own memory controller that is completely separate from the main PC system memory and controller. The main system memory controller is either in the Northbridge (if it's an Intel or older AMD system) or onboard the CPU (if it's a recent AMD chip, as in any flavor Athlon 64).

It is my experience also that nVidia's Linux drivers work pretty well. I've been using them with Slackware since Slack 9,and now also with SLAMD64 since SLAMD64 11.0, with no issues at all. However, they are closed source - you get what you get from nVidia.

There is a move afoot within AMD/ATI to create new truly open source Linux drivers that will be advanced and stable. I am curious to see how that turns out.

You will have no problems using a graphics accelerator that uses DDR2 video RAM. I myself have a socket 939 motherboard (which uses DDR RAM) and have an ATi HD 2900 series video card (which uses GDDR4 memory).

ZenDrum pretty much hit the nail on the head. Your system’s memory controller and graphics accelerator memory controller are completely separate and will not conflict with each other. The memory on graphics accelerator can and probably will (when buying/using a recently made one) will differ in their designations from the system memory.

As far as individual manufactures are concerned with respect to Linux drivers. It depends on the distribution. On some it is a pain to get my hardware acceleration working. On others I need to do very little.