A big(ger) dilemma...

[Emanem]

Hi guys, I don't want an OpenCL OS driver, but just a working OpenGL/OpenCL driver.
And yes, my plans will be to play maybe at HoN and/or SC2 when it comes out with wine.
Has anyone have ever had a good experience with wine and AMD/ATi?

Btw the Phenom config could allow me to save approx 200 GBP on top of all :-P

Cheers,

Btw, I just read this http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showp...4&postcount=13... Is this true?
Actually I'm a bit disappointed that AMD just supports Linux for corporates.
I'm gonna email them and ask. If their answer will be no, we support only Linux for corporates, my answer will be to buy nVidia... I'd like to buy AMD, but not even asking for perfect drivers as nVidia, but at least acknowledge support for end users.
If this isn't happening, my money won't go for AMD videocard.

[Emanem]

...
At the graphics side I would also choose AMD/ATI. Again I still like the company :-) and they really put effort and money to the open source support.
Now to the driver support: I'm quite satisfied with the driver (fglrx) support. This driver used to be really bad (2006), but it is actually now in a good state and works fine and is damn fast for all the OpenGL stuff I use it (there is no drawback compared to the Nvidia Quadro in my working PC).
...

Just curious, why does your intention of doing some OpenCL work force you to NVidia ? The Catalyst drivers support OpenCL on Windows and Linux (see Stream SDK) today.

It's only OpenCL on the open source driver stack where you'll probably need to wait for a while...

Hi guys, I don't want an OpenCL OS driver, but just a working OpenGL/OpenCL driver.
And yes, my plans will be to play maybe at HoN and/or SC2 when it comes out with wine.
Has anyone have ever had a good experience with wine and AMD/ATi?

Btw the Phenom config could allow me to save approx 200 GBP on top of all :-P

Cheers,

[Armin]

Personally I would definitely go for a Phenom system, just because I like the company more. :-) OK and I think they are also doing a really good job concerning the power consumption, which leads to a quiet system!

At the graphics side I would also choose AMD/ATI. Again I still like the company :-) and they really put effort and money to the open source support.
Now to the driver support: I'm quite satisfied with the driver (fglrx) support. This driver used to be really bad (2006), but it is actually now in a good state and works fine and is damn fast for all the OpenGL stuff I use it (there is no drawback compared to the Nvidia Quadro in my working PC).

Concerning your GPGPU: CUDA is really nice but as bridgman already pointed out AMD/ATI also works fine with OpenCL. And seriously, I don't know if I would like to bind myself to CUDA ...

So left is the gaming/wine thing where I have no clue about, (last game I played was on my AMD K6 under Win95). :-)

[bridgman]

Just curious, why does your intention of doing some OpenCL work force you to NVidia ? The Catalyst drivers support OpenCL on Windows and Linux (see Stream SDK) today.

It's only OpenCL on the open source driver stack where you'll probably need to wait for a while...

[Emanem]

Well, it's difficult to narrow down a recommendation too much for somebody else :-) Therefore some more 'ifs':
If you have enough money to spend and gaming is important: GTX470 (just read that they're already available at a few retailers).
If you want to save money now and upgrade later and gaming is important: GTX260.
If gaming is not so important (or you'd be willing to game on windows): HD5850/HD5870.


One and a half year ago I decided to go with ATI and I still am happy about that decision even though development was somewhat slower than I anticipated. I had hoped that I could play not-so-demanding games like WoW (on low settings) by mid-2009, but that didn't come true. I do have a dual-boot environment and gaming is still not really possible with the open source drivers (except Quake Live).
Well, the r600g (Gallium3D, also should work on Evergreen/HD5xxx) driver is started now, so that should hopefully get us a working driver by the end of the year ... and hopefully Gallium3D also is capable of OpenGL 3 by then. But there are no guarantees ;-)

Thanks, this was kinda insightful.
I think that maybe I'll be doing some OpenCL as well, so I guess nVidia is a forced choice then... Still undecided if i7 or Phenom, but apparently I'll go for a gtx 260 or 285... anyway still 2~4 weeks to decide (yet) so I'm always keen to listen to other suggestions!

Cheers,

[Kano]

The GTX 260 is in most cases fully overpriced since the end of last year. Hard to recommand it...

[Luzipher]

Well, it's difficult to narrow down a recommendation too much for somebody else :-) Therefore some more 'ifs':
If you have enough money to spend and gaming is important: GTX470 (just read that they're already available at a few retailers).
If you want to save money now and upgrade later and gaming is important: GTX260.
If gaming is not so important (or you'd be willing to game on windows): HD5850/HD5870.


One and a half year ago I decided to go with ATI and I still am happy about that decision even though development was somewhat slower than I anticipated. I had hoped that I could play not-so-demanding games like WoW (on low settings) by mid-2009, but that didn't come true. I do have a dual-boot environment and gaming is still not really possible with the open source drivers (except Quake Live).
Well, the r600g (Gallium3D, also should work on Evergreen/HD5xxx) driver is started now, so that should hopefully get us a working driver by the end of the year ... and hopefully Gallium3D also is capable of OpenGL 3 by then. But there are no guarantees ;-)

[Kano]

The successor of the GTX 260/275, the GTX 460 should follow the GTX 470/480 in june (in theory). GTX 470 is very expensive and needs much more power.

[Emanem]

...

Another point would be DX11 / OpenGL 4 compliance, you don't get that with nVidia below a GTX4xx, but if you plan to upgrade not too far in the future anyway, this doesn't really matter.

So basically or I get AMD now (58xx), but I have to wait at least 6 months to have it working, or I buy nVidia without OpenGL4 or nVidia with OpenGL4 but again a bad videocard?

What would you recommend?

Cheers,

[Luzipher]

Uh, I don't really have experience with newer nVidia cards ... I'd say go cheaper if you plan to upgrade soon, go more expensive if you want to keep the card for a while.

Hm, I just checked prices, the cheapest 260 is about 150?, the cheapest 285 is about 260?. And it seems the 285 is about 20% faster (just checked very few benchmarks on Anandtech). That wouldn't really justify the price premium for the 285 for me.
By the way, the GTX470 seems to start at about 320?, that makes the 285 even more unattractive, I think.

Another point would be DX11 / OpenGL 4 compliance, you don't get that with nVidia below a GTX4xx, but if you plan to upgrade not too far in the future anyway, this doesn't really matter.