[NTLUG:Discuss] need hardware config recommendations

[Steve Baker]

ntlug at levelofdetail.com wrote:

> I'm especially shaky regarding the video cards. What should I look for?
> Is video through PCI always faster than AGP? Are PCI and PCI Express
> compatible with each other and compatible with Linux?

Short Answer:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you can afford it, get PCI-express.  If not, AGP will do quite
nicely.  Both work well under Linux.

I would advise nVidia-based cards rather than ATI/Radeon. To get the best
out of either of them you need to use (urgh) proprietary closed-source
drivers - and nVidia's drivers are MUCH more reliable than ATI's.

PCI-express is *NOT* the same thing as old-fashioned PCI.


Longer Answer:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* PCI is WAY too slow for a modern 3D graphics card...and I doubt
   you could even buy a decent PCI graphics card these days.
* AGP is fast enough - but it's not cutting edge and over the next
   year or two it will rapidly be obsoleted.  I would be quite
   suprised if any new cards appear with AGP support after the
   inevitable new releases coming out this Xmas.
* PCI-express (PCI-e) is the up-coming standard, it's very new and
   it's very good...but that makes it expensive.
* There is another (dying) standard called PCI-X.  That is *NOT* an
   abbreviation for PCI-express!  Don't even think about using it.

AGP comes in various speed grades - x1, x2, x4 and x8. Most modern
Mobo's support x8.  If you are short of cash, x4 is OK.  x8 is
obviously better.  If you get an x2 system, then any relatively
modern graphics/CPU combination will be choked by the slowness of
the AGP bus.

PCI-express is a standard that uses a number of data paths called 'lanes'.
The more lanes, the faster the interface.  Some motherboards with multiple
PCI-express slots have one slot with only one lane and another with 8
or 16 lanes.  This is probably OK if you plan to put your graphics card
into the fast slot and use the slower PCI-e slot for something else.

If you plan to go for a REALLY high performing system, you can actually
buy TWO nVidia PCI-e cards with 'SLI' capability which connects them together
and doubles your graphics power.  If you plan to go that way then you
need a motherboard which has plenty of PCI-e lanes going to BOTH slots.
nVidia havn't release drivers for SLI under Linux yet - but I'd expect
to see them within a month or so.

I don't have detailed advice about ATI/Radeon graphics cards because
I don't recommend any of them.  Their hardware is great - but their
drivers are horrible.

So let's talk about nVidia/GeForce cards:

If you can afford it, get a 6000 series nVidia card (6600 or 6800)
because they have some important features that the 5000 series (5200,
5950, etc) don't.  Not much (if any) Linux software depends on that
yet, but over the next few years, that could easily change.

If you expect to keep the system for more than a year and play
games and such - DO NOT CHOOSE A CARD BASED ON GeForce2, 3 or 4
chipsets.  They don't support a feature called 'fragment shaders'
which is the biggest thing to happen to computer graphics in the
last 20 years!

Both nVidia and ATI play complicated games with RAM speeds and chip
speeds on their graphics cards.  Keeping track of which ones go at
what speeds is a nightmare.  Check the online review/benchmark sites
to figure out which ones are fastest.

There are a *few* other companies with reasonable 3D graphics cards,
but drivers are always a problem and performance usually lags far
behind nVidia and ATI.  3DLabs make interesting (if expensive) cards
- but their driver support is limited to only a couple of RedHat
releases and I havn't really beaten on them hard to find problems.
Mostly you'd want 3Dlabs for niche applications like CAD...but even
then, nVidia is a 500lb Gorilla of the graphics business.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>    WorkEmail: <sjbaker at link.com>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
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