Graphics card recommendation

julian24 · 2012-04-06 17:26:02

Hi.

I'm looking for a new graphics card for my PC (currently using an ATI HD 3200 onboard) and I'd like to know which one you'd recommend.

Please let me know what card you own, which driver you use it with and if it works well.

Thank you.

karol · 2012-04-06 18:00:22

Works well for what? Gaming?
What budget?

julian24 · 2012-04-06 18:07:03

Just for some normal tasks and multimedia stuff, nothing special (like fancy gaming). Shouldn't be too expensive, I'd say about 80€ (~$100) max.

Gusar · 2012-04-06 18:58:50

If you don't need anything fancy, get the lowest-end Nvidia card. A GT520 (48 shader cores, 29W TDP) might be even under your budget, then you can go with a GT430 (96 shader cores, 56W TDP) for a bit more oomph. With the closed nvidia driver, you'll get the best multimedia experience Linux can offer - VDPAU.

I personally have a GTS450. Very fine card, has enough power for even a game or two (192 shader cores, 106W TDP). Whatever you decide, it should definitely be Nvidia, so you'll have VDPAU.

Last edited by Gusar (2012-04-06 19:00:49)

lifeafter2am · 2012-04-06 19:01:08

I'm running a GTX550Ti with the proprietary nvidia driver; works great and has lots of umph!

karol · 2012-04-06 19:03:17

lifeafter2am wrote:

I'm running a GTX550Ti

I think it's more like a $150 card, unless you can buy used or get some killer discount.

lifeafter2am · 2012-04-06 19:04:15

karol wrote:

lifeafter2am wrote:
I'm running a GTX550Ti
I think it's more like a $150 card, unless you can buy used or get some killer discount.

Had a rebate back when I bought it so I picked it up for $110

julian24 · 2012-04-06 19:10:21

Yeah with proprietary drivers I'd go with Nvidia. Are there also any cards that work well with free drivers?

karol · 2012-04-06 19:15:57

They should work well with nouveau.
nouveau is not necessarily bad, but it's not as good as the proprietary nvidia drivers.

lifeafter2am · 2012-04-06 19:19:31

karol wrote:

They should work well with nouveau.
nouveau is not necessarily bad, but it's not as good as the proprietary nvidia drivers.

During my last install nouveau did not work with my card. That was probably a few kernels ago at this point though.

Gusar · 2012-04-06 19:23:03

The biggest issue currently for open drivers is power management. Though that might not be so relevant for a desktop machine. Not for a low-end card, in a high-end card temperature might be an issue. On a laptop power management is a must, for long battery life.
Also, the open drivers have limited VDPAU support. Only the mpeg2 decoder is complete, and decoding is done with shaders (which means lots of power consumption) instead of using the dedicated hardware decoders modern cards have.

The only open driver that has both complete power management (it sure took them a while though ) and hardware decoding support is Intel, but Intel doesn't make dedicated cards, so you'd need to change your entire machine to get Intel graphics.

karol · 2012-04-06 19:23:45

lifeafter2am wrote:

karol wrote:
They should work well with nouveau.
nouveau is not necessarily bad, but it's not as good as the proprietary nvidia drivers.
During my last install nouveau did not work with my card. That was probably a few kernels ago at this point though.

I haven't tried it myself, I based my answer on http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 25940.html

Gusar · 2012-04-06 19:35:48

Nouveau supports all nvidia cards starting with NV04 (Riva TNT), including Kepler. For Kepler you need latest git of xf86-video-nouveau and kernel 3.4-rc1 and only modesetting is there for now, but hey, Kepler was only released last week. That a reverse-engineered driver had support on launch day is quite impressive.

julian24 · 2012-04-06 19:45:39

Gusar wrote:

If you don't need anything fancy, get the lowest-end Nvidia card. A GT520 (48 shader cores, 29W TDP) might be even under your budget, then you can go with a GT430 (96 shader cores, 56W TDP) for a bit more oomph. With the closed nvidia driver, you'll get the best multimedia experience Linux can offer - VDPAU.

Does any one know how well the GT430 works mit nouveau? The nouveau wiki says "These cards are generally working with the latest kernel and Mesa but may still have power management issues." but does this mean that you somehow have graphics or that most things work fine? But I'll probably go with this one as I still have the proprietary driver as a fallback (I don't want to have to use fglrx ever again).

Arch Linux

#1 2012-04-06 17:26:02

Graphics card recommendation

#2 2012-04-06 18:00:22

Re: Graphics card recommendation

#3 2012-04-06 18:07:03

Re: Graphics card recommendation

#4 2012-04-06 18:58:50

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#5 2012-04-06 19:01:08

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#6 2012-04-06 19:03:17

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#7 2012-04-06 19:04:15

Re: Graphics card recommendation

#8 2012-04-06 19:10:21

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#9 2012-04-06 19:15:57

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#10 2012-04-06 19:19:31

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#11 2012-04-06 19:23:03

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#12 2012-04-06 19:23:45

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#13 2012-04-06 19:35:48

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#14 2012-04-06 19:45:39

Re: Graphics card recommendation

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