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-   -   Getting a new GPU: NVidia or ATI. (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/getting-a-new-gpu-nvidia-or-ati-784041/)

Viper_Scull 01-22-2010 10:36 AM

Getting a new GPU: NVidia or ATI.
 
Lately, the old times of gaming have returned because of Enemy Territory. So, as always, i want more. I wanna try occasionaly the latter games coming out in Windows... Modern Warfare, Street Fighter IV, and so on...

Problem is, I am going to spend most of the Pc time over Ubuntu, and although ATI has been shaping up lately on its drivers (i have ATI HD4200 now), probably NVidia's drivers are one step ahead. I use compiz and privative drivers and at the moment I have no problem at all with the HD4200, but i don't know how the HD5 series will work over Linux. I wanna look to the future also, cause radeonhd is improving fast (heard great things about kernel 2.6.33), and who knows? maybe within a year ati drivers take the lead.

Anyway, the options i have on mind are NVidia GT240 and ATI HD5670.
The ATI card has more performance (about 15%-20%), , and costs 10$ more. HD56XX has no support yet, probably with the Catalyst 10.1 next weekend it will.


What would you do?

Cheers.

rweaver 01-22-2010 11:18 AM

I'd be inclined to go with the ATI at this point as someone who games and uses linux. The ATI drivers for linux are no longer the slouch they once were and if they're not in place currently they will be in place soon and the 56xx cards are notably better than the nvidia which will be coming out with new cards this quarter (which will likely best the ATI again, as that is generally how things go), so my advice would be either:

a) wait.
b) get the ati... but keep in mind it might be a bit till drivers work correctly.

Jeff91 01-22-2010 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rweaver (Post 3836691)
I'd be inclined to go with the ATI at this point as someone who games and uses linux. The ATI drivers for linux are no longer the slouch they once were and if they're not in place currently they will be in place soon and the 56xx cards are notably better than the nvidia which will be coming out with new cards this quarter (which will likely best the ATI again, as that is generally how things go), so my advice would be either:

a) wait.
b) get the ati... but keep in mind it might be a bit till drivers work correctly.

The ATI driver state regarding Linux has been beyond trash for some time now. If you plan to do anything 3D (twice over if you want to run 3D Wine apps) get nVidia if you want good results.

~Jeff

Electro 01-23-2010 01:56 AM

Go with nVidia graphic cards, but a GeForce GT240 will slow you down. Linux uses OpenGL which will make a GeForce GT240 become the worst choice. Go with a GeForce GTX 280 or better.

I would only recommend ATI cards in Linux if you do not mind using the unofficial drivers or open source drivers and are not going to use 3D a lot since these drivers only supports OpenGL 1.5. These drivers are a lot more reliable and stable than ATI's proprietary software. ATI should be ashame that their software is poorly written. This puts a black eye on AMD since ATI is a family of AMD.

nVidia is better than ATI because it all about the software that makes them tick. Sure ATI may have a higher performance video card at this time, but nVidia is just better because of their drivers.

H_TeXMeX_H 01-23-2010 03:35 AM

nvidia, even tho the drivers often are the cause of system instability, they are probably still better than the ATI ones.

J.W. 01-23-2010 02:14 PM

I would also recommend nvidia. Years ago I had an ATI, but at least at that time their level of Linux support IMHO was marginal at best. It may be better now, but since I switched to nvidia and have enjoyed excellent performance since then, I see no reason to change

MTK358 01-23-2010 02:15 PM

If you want to use the open-source drivers and still have 3D, ATI is the only way.

Jeff91 01-23-2010 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTK358 (Post 3837909)
If you want to use the open-source drivers and still have 3D, ATI is the only way.

If you care about 3D at all ATI is not the way to go. The FOSS drivers for them have come a long way sure, but they are no where near the nVidia drivers...

~Jeff

Timothy Miller 01-23-2010 06:38 PM

Another vote for Nvidia. ATI drivers are garbage, and the FOSS 3d ones aren't yet to the point where you can count on them to work reliably.

damgar 01-23-2010 07:00 PM

I use NVIDIA controllers with proprietary drivers in all my machines, and have no regrets. Open Source drivers would be great, but NVIDIA CONSTANTLY updates their linux/unix drivers and that's good endough for me.

Borax_Man 01-26-2010 01:41 AM

I've had three NVIDIA cards with Linux, and never really had any issues. Currently with a GTX285, and it works pretty well with no problems or any intermittent issues.

The drivers are paramount. A good graphics card can mean nothing with poor drivers. NVIDIA's drivers give good performance.


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