I'm in the market for a high performance video card I can run on Ubuntu

[kevdog]

So finally I'm going to be able to spend some money on yet another Ubuntu system. It seems like all my old systems get relegated to Ubuntu, whereas the new get the latest Windows.

I'm finally in the market for a high performance Video Card. Fortunately or unfortunately I've never had to set up a ATI/NVidia graphics card with Ubuntu -- seems like my low end builds always have built-in graphics on the board.

I'm just looking for some recommendations on what works (with some tweaking of course). I'd say my max budget is around $300.

[WalmartSniperLX]

So finally I'm going to be able to spend some money on yet another Ubuntu system. It seems like all my old systems get relegated to Ubuntu, whereas the new get the latest Windows.

I'm finally in the market for a high performance Video Card. Fortunately or unfortunately I've never had to set up a ATI/NVidia graphics card with Ubuntu -- seems like my low end builds always have built-in graphics on the board.

I'm just looking for some recommendations on what works (with some tweaking of course). I'd say my max budget is around $300.

I currently can't offer you the best advice since I've been out of the loop with the current performance GPU lineup as well. But, what I can say is that I'm running a high end card AMD gpu from an older generation (HD4870) and I was able to get it working in Ubuntu with the proprietary driver installer.

However, I would recommend an nvidia GPU. If you want best performance for the buck, I would look into the top cards of the last generation. Because of the price curve, you will pay more money for less power if you were to buy a current generation card at a similar price over the previous and you won't really be missing out on anything. So, maybe a GTX5xx or 4xx.

[rk0r]

I am running a laptop with a "Nvidia Gforce 9300m gs 512mb" the card gets picked up great by the ubuntu nvidia drivers. I have only played nexus with the laptop and it seems to blitz it. IMO Ubuntu is not built for games, to get the most out of your games i would install a windows OS as the GPU are mainly focused for that platform.

[effenberg0x0]

AMD vs. ATI is a subject that can quickly attracted opinionated users that will defend one or the other with their lives. Actually, both work very well with recent versions of Ubuntu.

I prefer NVidia. My personal PCs run with 9500GT, 9600GT (which are cheap cards today, but deliver great performance on Ubuntu/Unity/Compiz) and GTX-450 (a little more powerful).

As a side note, I could never really see any benefit with SLI in Ubuntu, so I wouldn't recommend it. Don't buy a more expensive card just to have this feature.

Regards,
Effenberg

[Lightstar]

I wont debate which card is more powerful, but nVidia tends to work out of the box more often than ATI cards when it comes to Linux. That's the main reason I go with nVidia.

On Windows, both are fine.
I've used both in recent years.

[Grenage]

I generally opt for Nvidia cards in any of my Linux builds; I've never had a problem with them.

Are you planning on doing anything GPU-heavy?

[waldherrvonbirnbaum]

dont take the nvidia gtx 550 ti! i just had trouble with this. the card is very powerful but probably to new. the current nvidia driver is not working correct except for ubuntu 10.4. tried it also on fedora 16 and 17, opensuse 12.1. no success.

[BeRoot ReBoot]

If you're planning on building a new PC, wait for Ivy Bridge processors, and wait for the Geforce 600 series video cards. They're both just around the corner, and will offer significant performance/power usage improvement. And even if you decide against it, the prices for older stuff should drop somewhat once they're out.

[forrestcupp]

Go ahead and get a Geforce GTX 680 for $500-600 and wait around for Linux kernel 3.4 to come out.

[oldfred]

Some nVidia driver info:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA3NTY

This is just a comparison of cards, but does not tell if they work well in Linux. See last page for chart. I use this to compare power vs. price that I can find, but I do not look at high end cards.

Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart March 2012
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

[kevdog]

Thanks for advice -- I thought the IvyBridge processors were out -- but alas, I find I'm wrong once again. Looks like Nvidia is the consensus choice for linux due to driver support. Nothing too graphics heavy --- I usually dual boot anyway. I'm probably not going SLI since those gaming fantasies are from yesteryear.