What to buy? ATI/Nvidia?

[gtrawoger]

It seems the question of which to get, ATI or Nvidia, is unclear still. Especially since newegg.ca (Canada) has the 4870 currently @ $236.99 (http://www.newegg.ca/Product).

The next best price for an 260GTX is around $300 (most sell around $325). These two card are on par as far as performance is concerned. (http://www.tomshardware.com/

Now, if someone could let me know if compiz, movies (some HD) and some WINE games (i.e. Portal) are going to work decent, I'd seriously consider the ATI card again.

I used to only purchase ATI (Radeon 7000, 9550, 9600XT, 9800, and as mentioned 3850) since I believed then and still do, that ATi's hardware was/is superior. But back then mixing linux and ATI was a bad recipe. Once I switched to nvidia it was much easier (not trouble free mind you, but easier).

[spoilerhead]

To conclude my initial post:

- i got myself a Radeon 4870
- i installed ubuntu x64

everything works perfectly fine out of the box, better than any ati experience i had before

[jonnycat26]

To conclude my initial post:

- i got myself a Radeon 4870
- i installed ubuntu x64

everything works perfectly fine out of the box, better than any ati experience i had before

I'm not sure if you can answer these questions, but I'll ask anyhow. How is gaming (native/wine) with the 4870? And do you see any issues with video playback?

[spoilerhead]

XV is not working out of the box , didn't bother to find a solution for that yet (web is indicating that deactivating compiz would work, but personally i like compiz, and my machine got enough power for Xshm, even for HD on fullscreen)

native gaming works fine (tremulous runs at 90 FPS without ever dropping below it)

didn't test wine yet

[spoilerhead]

just didd a little run with the test tool from here

Ubuntu 8.10 x64 - shipped Fglrx driver
Open GL: ~280 FPS
DirectX ~250 FPS

Windows XP - catalyst 8.9:
Open GL: ~290 FPS
DirectX: 56 FPS (i think its some driver issue)

don't have any real windows games at hand yet

[jonnycat26]

XV is not working out of the box , didn't bother to find a solution for that yet (web is indicating that deactivating compiz would work, but personally i like compiz, and my machine got enough power for Xshm, even for HD on fullscreen)

If you don't mind my asking, what kind of CPU do you have, and what are you using to playback your video (xine or mplayer or ??)?

[Melcar]

Native games work great. Wine games are "meh" at best. Compiz with Xv is still not possible with windowed videos due to the whole DRI thing (fullscreen works great though).

Speaking of Wine:

http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=profile&u=melcar-24918-2004-7894

Someone care to compare?