Hello newbies, gurus, experts and lovers of linux:

I am going to buy a video card but, Already in existence are tree principal companies in the market, nVidia, ATI and Matrox, for Gamers I know the two first Co's are more popular than the Maxtor ones. In this scenario, for years I am always stay with nVidia, we can debate a lot of this tree Trademarks but, My Concrete Question is: Which GPU Manufactures do you think is the best in overall quality and performance? And the Question is specific in the 7900gtx (obvious of nVidia).

Of all of this companies that I remember:

eVGA, Leadtek, MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, XFX, BFG, etc.

THANK YOU.

For what I've tested, both on Windows and Linux, nVidia cards have always proved better than ATI cards, if that's what you ask. I haven't used Matrox cards so really can't say about them...the basic usage is good on every one of those cards (2d), but when it comes to boosting the 3d graphics for playing games, nVidia has - in my case - had less problematic drivers, caused less troubles and worked better in every aspect I can think of. ATI, instead, tends to cause crashes, it's drivers are horrible (both Linux fglrx and Windows Catalyst) and it seems the Control Center itself is heavy as a truckload of lead.

On the other hand, different card types do have differencies..and as I have not had chance to test them all out, all I can say is that those I've tried, nVidia has been better of the "two big".

I've only ever used Nvidia and they have much better support in linux. However on paper, the new Radeons look like they'd flog the crap out of the high-end Nvidia cards. Things like 512-bit memory bus and the new X1950XTX with GDDR4 memory... wow. That's on paper, not in real life however but with the wider memory bus, cranking antialiasing up won't be as big of a FPS hit if you really really like smooth edges.

This will be a mega thread... I can tell you.. ;-)
But I would agree to cs-cam take a look at toms hardware guide then you will get allot of informations. The nvidia installer is very easy to handle and the ati installer can be very snarly for beginners. But it has a lot of options that you can set already while you install ati driver.
But at the end check out toms hardware guide and you'll see that most of the benchmarks from ati look like they are all kind of bribed by the designers manufactures.. and Nvidia is mostly cheaper then ati.

Matrox cards are crap. There is little driver support (closed-source, you can't even download the parhelia driver unless you register with matrox (I sold my parhelia when I discovered this, screw them)). For gaming, they aren't even vaguely an option.

I had a Radeon 9800 a while back. Driver was a PITA to install but it worked OK once I got it going. But, as everyone else has said, nvidia drivers are much easier to install (though I've had some instability with nvidia cards/mobos, never had any trouble with the radeon...). As ever, YMMV. For new cards, nvidia is your best bet (ati haven't got 64-bit support yet, so radeons aren't even any option if you have a 64-bit box (well, unless you want to run a 32-bit OS)).

As for brands, there probably isn't a huge difference (maybe a few %), though Gainward and XFX are well respected.

In regards to that point, different manufacturers will clock their cards at different speeds, may use different cooling etc. Nvidia ship a guide board for them to follow but past the basic chipset, memory and other low-level stuff, the rest is up to the individual manufacturer.

Make sure you check GPU and memory clock speeds, cooling setups etc as they should all be part of a good buying decision.

Ok. Then is too hard to find a conclusion yet, but, Do you can give me an opinion about all of these brands? in this specific model of 7900gtx.

I was heard that the eVGA is the best of all, but in this forums I never read about of comparison in quality, performace or durability, the MSI is very popular in my country but, I always suspect from MSI and recently I read about in other forums that is the worst.

About drivers and Linux support, I know in my own experience has great support and excelent driver platform from 32 and 64 bits.

But the Idea of this Thread is more hardware orientated.

THANKS

eVGA are a good brand from what I've heard. I owned a MSI 6600GT which was a good card however it ran a little hot. I now own a Albatron 7900GT which is good for my needs however I'm using a Zalman cooler on it so I can't tell you how hot it ran originally. The fan I pulled off it was pretty small which was the reason for the upgrade.

I have an old box with a Matrox G400 (Slack 10.1/W98SE) as well as a new one with nVidia 6100 integrated on MoBo (Slack10.2/WinXP). From a video quality perspective, the Matrox system beats the shit out of the nVidia system.
On both systems I use 1152x768 on an Iiyama 703 monitor.

PS:
This is not necessary a nVida problem. A bad design of the MoBo by the manufacturer can be the cause as well. As others indicated, the design of a VGA card is very important. A bad filter at the output can ruin the complete quality.

Hello again friends:

With a god notice I acquired a nVidia GeForce PCI-e from EVGA, but I have a Power Supply issue.

This card has a kind of adapter to convert two standard +5v,gnd,gnd,+12v connector in a 2x3 connector that is attached in the pci-e card, this power connector just take +12v from the standard connector (I believe you know better than me).

Ok, The new ATX rev2.2 has 4 more connector in the main connector, before has 10x2 = 20pin, but now is 12x2 with 4 added voltage to the Motherboard, +3.3v,+5v,+12v,gnd.

My concrete questions are: What is the difference to use 20 pin vs 24 pin main connector? Does it affect the pci-e adapter, and What is the specific function of this additional 4pins in the main connector?

For your attention, THANX

It's more of a matter of which ever your motherboard uses. Older ATX motherboards tended to use 20 pin, but alot of newer ones use 24 pin. You can get an adaptor to convert between the two. Alot of PSUs include such an adaptor or have it to where the extra 4 pins can come unclipped.

Instead of reinventing the wheel. I'll give you a link to a good website that gives you all the information you could possibly want about voltages, PSUs, and what each connector is etc. As you can probably see from this site is that the adaptor I mention isn't really necesary, but you should exercise some good judgement and caution (like make sure you know what you're doing).


http://www.playtool.com/pages/psurailhistory/rails.html

OK, if my system config is:

ASUS M2N32-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600
1GB RAM Kingston 533MHz
EVGA GeForce 7900gtx
1 SATA HDD
1 DVDRW

PSU Thermaltake 430W (500W Maximum)

The issues are because this PSU is the 2nd one, the last crash when I am playing a Game, but the the Previous PSU Has the 24 MAIN POWER CONNECTOR and I attached the PCI-e power adaptor.