Should I get an ati or nvidia card?

[Kano]

Usually only ATI manages to kill the system when X is locked, Nvidia Xserver crashes are more harmless, would not hurt uptime. Only in rare cases when you can not unload old kernel modules when you want to install new drivers you have to reboot.

[Redeeman]

It's a vocal few that have issues. I have yet to experience a lockup or crash from the nvidia drivers.

And yes I have 8800GT's as well as others ranging from 9600's - 6600 GT's still in use.

i've yet to see a single box having >60 days uptime with the nvidia driver loaded...

[d2kx]

When the first reviews with the 8800 GT and the HD 3870 have been made, the 8800 GT was faster. Over the last month however, the AMD Catalyst drivers have greatly improved RV670 performance so that there isn't a difference anymore. If you think about the future (open source support), I'd say go with AMD/ATi.

[Dandel]

I say stick with ATI, just go with the radeon HD3850 or HD3650 card, and you won't be disappointed, when the open source driver catches up... i've used various Nvidia and ATI cards on linux also... i prefer my ATI cards because i tend to not have as many issues overall... had various troubles with nvidia while running windows. ( their most popular platform to be ran on. )

[deanjo]

Hmmm, this news throws things into a loop for me.

Generally I keep a video card for 2-3 years. I dual-boot Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu Hardy Heron. So, I'm looking for something that works well right now.

I've always been an ATI person - I've owned their cards from Rage 128 all the way to my current X1650Pro. But currently the 8800GT has a sizable lead on 3d performance over the HD3870, and both cards cost the same. Having had to deal with shoddy FGLRX performance over the years I was planning on going Nvidia, since most of the people running (admittedly older) Nvidia hardware were happy with their Linux experience. I set up a Linux box for my grandmother using the onboard video of an nForce motherboard and it worked flawlessly. Compiz was smooth, full-screen video playback was perfect, it even loaded a game or two without complaint, though with slow framerates.

However, the Catalyst 8.3 drivers that ship with Ubuntu are so far pretty amazing. No crashes (not ever), WoW runs great, Compiz is beautiful, etc... The 2d performance might not be there, but for what I use (OpenOffice, Firefox, some Audacity), it is more than adequate. Bad video playback support has been my one major complaint.

But what folks seem to be saying here is that the 8800gt is not well supported at all by the linux drivers and might make my currently stable system into a crash-prone nightmare. Is this true? Is it isolated to just their most recent driver (and thus likely an anomaly)? I'm reasonably certain that either will work fine on the Vista side, but good Linux performance is important to me.

Can you guys shed some light on this for me?

It's a vocal few that have issues. I have yet to experience a lockup or crash from the nvidia drivers.

And yes I have 8800GT's as well as others ranging from 9600's - 6600 GT's still in use.

[Antiphonal]

Hmmm, this news throws things into a loop for me.

Generally I keep a video card for 2-3 years. I dual-boot Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu Hardy Heron. So, I'm looking for something that works well right now.

I've always been an ATI person - I've owned their cards from Rage 128 all the way to my current X1650Pro. But currently the 8800GT has a sizable lead on 3d performance over the HD3870, and both cards cost the same. Having had to deal with shoddy FGLRX performance over the years I was planning on going Nvidia, since most of the people running (admittedly older) Nvidia hardware were happy with their Linux experience. I set up a Linux box for my grandmother using the onboard video of an nForce motherboard and it worked flawlessly. Compiz was smooth, full-screen video playback was perfect, it even loaded a game or two without complaint, though with slow framerates.

However, the Catalyst 8.3 drivers that ship with Ubuntu are so far pretty amazing. No crashes (not ever), WoW runs great, Compiz is beautiful, etc... The 2d performance might not be there, but for what I use (OpenOffice, Firefox, some Audacity), it is more than adequate. Bad video playback support has been my one major complaint.

But what folks seem to be saying here is that the 8800gt is not well supported at all by the linux drivers and might make my currently stable system into a crash-prone nightmare. Is this true? Is it isolated to just their most recent driver (and thus likely an anomaly)? I'm reasonably certain that either will work fine on the Vista side, but good Linux performance is important to me.

Can you guys shed some light on this for me?

[bridgman]

dtkx: I was talking more about "new chips vs old chips" (driven by industry trends and techno realities) more than "linux vs windows" which we expect will continue to improve.

To the extent that Linux is across-the-board slower than Windows, that will have to be addressed more in the X framework than in the drivers themselves. That said, the framework is continuing to improve, and the framework changes made in conjunction with radeon driver optimization work should help all vendors and chips.

[deanjo]

hd 3450 on catalyst 8.5 is alot faster than nvidia 8800gt{s,x}

Would you care to post your gtkperf -c1000?

[Redeeman]

hd 3450 on catalyst 8.5 is alot faster than nvidia 8800gt{s,x}

[d2kx]

Well, my R580 has a 2D engine, and 2D performance in comparison with Windows is a joke. It is fast enough for most users I guess, but in comparison, it is still a bad joke. I can't tell for RV670 or newer...