Can anyone suggest which graphics card would be better?
128Mb GigaByte ATI Radeon 9000 Pro II Retail DVI/TV Out
or
128Mb ABIT *x8* Siluro GeForce 4 AGP Ti4200 TV Out/DVI/Dual

I'm trying to build a new pc that will be good for games - which are windows games, but I want everything to run linux really well, (as I'd only use windows for games).

I would personally go with ATI Radeon 9700 Pro. Support for DX9 and 8X AGP. Also, I would get the AIW version and you get a sweet remote and TV input for ~50$ more.

Ya, i'd go with the 9700 pro. It works great on my red hat 8.0. I had a little trouble installing the drivers, but that was because I didn't follow the given instructions.

128Mb GigaByte ATI Radeon 9000 Pro II Retail DVI/TV Out is not an 9700 Pro. Its the same series but very different on bandwidth and speed. Yes, ATI RADEON 9700 PRO is faster than any NVIDIA cards under Windows but ATI doesn't have any good drivers for LINUX.

acjt, do you want a card that is easy to install or do you want hard to install. ATI cards are harder to setup and you won't get all the features that it has. NVIDIA cards are easier to install and you get most of the features.

You'd hardly know that based on the number of questions about installing the Nvidia drivers that you see. :-)

Funny that you said that. I have an NVIDIA GeForce4 420MX and I didn't have any problems installing or setting it up.

Many people do not put in the time to read the whole documentation.

Abit GF4 MX-8X and only a slight snag here. (One of the rpms wouldn't install for some reason; tar worked flawlessly.) My guess is that the documentation is a little daunting. Especially for folks who've come from the land of Windows where documentation is nearly non-existent any more. At least for the general users. Too many ``Dummies'' books may be convincing users that they actually are. :-(

I want really whichever one is best, or is the one that is least likely to have problems.
I have seem lots of questions/notes about people having problems with their cards, exactly how hard are these things to install?
I think the Radeon cards seem to be cheaper also?

I suspect that a lot of the difficulty comes to people who've not had a lot of experience installing hardware and software (perhaps never having used anything but Windows in the past) and have never used rpm, gunzip, tar, etc. before trying to install a driver. Not hard to imagine how daunting that could be.

Gee, I don't know about that. The latest and greatest Radeon cards seem to need their own connection right from the (suggested) beefy power supply. The card may be cheaper than other vendors but if I have to have an industrial strength PC to run it it's probably a wash.

I have been doing a bit of research here. I am trying to build a pretty decent system from scratch, buying all the parts.
It's been a while since I've bought a pc, so I don't know really how things compare, such as the difference between an XP2400 and XP2700, the two cards (or even better cards), different motherboards.
I would like it to be good enough to play games on, and do some work on (development) without struggling at all, but I don't need the very best of everything. Just a combination that is nice for a decent price.
See, I also don't know with Linux if I need 1Gig DDR ram or if 512 would be enough. I have 1Gig at work (XP though) and a P4 1.5ghz and it goes alright, but I would like something better for home because I don't want to upgrade all the time.
It's tough!
Pretty much what I want is:
mainboard (gigabyte??)
video card (radeon or nvidia?)
80 gig 7200 HDD 8mb cache
nice lookin case (not an ugly one!).
network card
internal modem (because I can't get broadband )
AMD processor
sound card
speakers (just basic ones - just so i can hear stuff!)
I basically don't want to spend more than £750 pounds, but I don't want rubbish either! I don't know if I'm being realistic.

I have a monitor, mouse and keyboard all connected to my laptop, so I don't need that sort of thing). I will want to put linux on it (it doesn't play too well with my laptop (sound and modem sucks)) and will also put winXP on it also (for some games).
Any suggestions?
ta.

For the videocard both are good choices, I'd probably go for the Radeon.

For a motherboard I'd choose a nForce2 board from Chaintech or Asus.

HD: check out WesternDigital or Maxtor 6Y080P0

Case: I'm in love with the Thermaltake Xaser A5000

Network card: anything with a realtek 8139 chip will do (good and cheap, works on most OSes), intel etherexpress pro100 is fine as well.

Sound: Creative SoundBlaster or Audigy

512MB DDR RAM should be enough. In Linux I never use that much.

Video card-Get the Nvidia. I have a GeForce 4 TI4400, Radeon 9000, and a Radeon 9100 (and a Radeon 9700 Pro, but that's a different price range ) Although the Radeons have better looking quality in windows, in linux Nvidias are better due to the much greater experience writing linux drivers. Either can be a pain in the @ss to install. The TI4200 is going to outperform a Radeon 9000 Pro in linux OR windows, no 2 ways about it.

Timothy got it right about the video cards, both can be a pain to install/configure but nvidia provide better quality drivers, the rest of your hardware is ok but I would keep away from internal modems, while some of them have linux drivers they are all hard to set up and trouble shoot, an external hardware modem will just work with any operating system - beware of external usb modems though, some of them are just winmodems in a box.

Any Geforce 4 TI will destroy the Radeon 9000 in most 3d apps and games... and this is in Windows. In linux, there isn't even a comparison. The Geforce 4 will stomp all over the 9000. While true, the 9700 is a better card than any Geforce 4, we are talking about the 9000. ;-) I've even seen a Geforce 4 MX 440 load games like BattleField 1942 faster than a 9000, even on a slower machine. Go with the Geforce 4 TI over the Radeon 9000. It's not only a better card, it will perform a hell of a lot better in linux.

-AquamaN

I have a spec I will ring about tomorrow. It's a bit more expensive than I expected, but I think the bits are good.
128MB MSI GF4 It4200 with TV Out
Chieftec Black 340Watt Midi Case
Sony 16x DVD Rom (40X CD Rom) Internal IDE
LG CDRW 52x 24x 52 IDE Retail Inc Media & Software
AMD Athlon XP2600 333 FSB Thorougbred
1.44 Black Panasonic FDD
80Gig Maxtor ATA-133 7200 rpm, 8MG cache quiet drive
1024Mb PC2700 (PC333) DDR ram
Asus A7V8X-LSA 1394 DDR333 KT400 8xAGP + Lan + USB2 + ATA150 + FW1394
Creative Labs SoundBlaster 5.1 PCI
Creative Labs Inspire 2.1 2400 3 spkers.
US Robotics 56k v.92 External modem

Sounds OK to me. Hopefully it will be good!