[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: pci-e and linux ( and radeon -vs- nvidia )

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Wed, 2004-12-22 at 06:44, Justin M. Forbes wrote:
> 1. Use an older nvidia PCX-5x00 card (I have used a 5300 with the nv driver
> just fine). I believe the 5300 and 5750 are still available in PCI-Express
> form in a few places.

Unless you go with a FX5750 or higher, save your money and get an old
GeForce4 Ti4200/4800.  It blows away the FX5200 and FX5500 at
_everything_ (even new DX9/GL games like Doom3 where the FX5200 and
FX5500 just don't have the horses for the features to make a
difference), and for the underclocked FX5700"LE", you've gotta be
running Doom3 with the settings jacked up to see any difference.

> 2. Use a newer nvidia card with the binary only drivers.  You would have to
> use the binary drivers if you wanted 3D support with them anyway.

Yes, nVidia's Standardware "nvidia" driver 1.0-6629 supports _all_ newer
PCIe cards _except_ the 6200.  The GeForce 6600 and 6600GT are
_excellent_ 128MB cards for $130-180 and will _destroy_all_ FX series
cards even with 256MB.

> 3. Use an Ati card with either the vesa driver, or an updated version of
> xorg.  No 3D support here either.

The last DRI suppored ATI cards I noted were the R200 series (pre-Radeon
9500) like the Radeon 8500 and 9000 (not the 9100 or 9200 though).

Anything R300 or newer ain't gonna work with DRI.

> 4. Use an ATI card with their binary drivers (I have heard mixed results
> here, and you would need to check and see if the x700 is supported before
> you buy it).

Also note while the X700 and X800 are the cutting edge R400 series, the
X300 and X600 are _not_.  A lot of people are buying the X300 cards for
Windows and going "WTF"?

It's all about marketing.  Let the buyer beware!


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                    b.j.smith at ieee.org 
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Subtotal Cost of Ownership (SCO) for Windows being less than Linux
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) assumes experts for the former, costly
retraining for the latter, omitted "software assurance" costs in 
compatible desktop OS/apps for the former, no free/legacy reuse for
latter, and no basic security, patch or downtime comparison at all.