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View Full Version : Choosing graphics card, based on their open source future



darkazurka
February 23rd, 2008, 10:38 PM
I'm thinking about buying the "Sapphire Radeon X1050 256MB AGP", (with DVI connection to the screen), because they have plans or are working to make the drivers open source.

I've searched the ati site, and I've found that it mentions plans about giving out their driver source code, and especially for the card I'm thinking of buying, that belongs in the "ATI Radeon™ X1000 Series" http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~119372,00.html
I'm not very interested in if it won't work as efficient as an nvidia card would, but I'm thinking of it as supporting the company that has the greatest "wish" to open source their drivers. I first thought about the Nvidia fx 5200 but didn't notice anything about that their drivers are going open source.

Which graphics card manufacturer is more concentrated on making their drivers open source? I think ATI for the moment.

note: I'll also need a DVI to VGA converter, which costs very little, only about 3€(euro).

SunnyRabbiera
February 23rd, 2008, 11:11 PM
Actually Nvidia and intel are the better, ATI stinks honestly for linux support.

Erunno
February 23rd, 2008, 11:17 PM
Hasn't ATI released the specifications for most of their graphic cards without any form of NDA recently? This will ease the development of OSS drivers considerably even if ATI themselves fail to come up with decent drivers. That puts them right ahead of nVidia which still refuse to let OSS glimpse into the specs for the 3D acceleration of their cards.

And if you don't intend to play any kind of 3D games I'd probably stick with Intel who have been friendly towards Linux for a long time (not only in the graphic card department, but also by providing very useful sofware like PowerTop and LatencyTop).

fedex1993
February 23rd, 2008, 11:17 PM
yes nvidia is the future ati is lacking the future

darkazurka
February 23rd, 2008, 11:28 PM
I've thought about using the card for compiz-fusion, but my first thought was to buy a card from the company that is first among those who support an open source version of their drivers.

samwyse
February 24th, 2008, 12:26 AM
I guess if you want something now, buy a motherboard with an i965 chip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Open_source_support

Otherwise go for Ati and get stuck with whatever is available for it until the free drivers are released.

H264
February 24th, 2008, 09:51 AM
It's only a matter of a few months now... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_tcore_release&num=1 They also have updated drivers from the one I have, the one I have is not too bad. Good drives could be around for the 8.04 release; I would go with ATI (I have the X1600)

ssam
February 24th, 2008, 11:32 AM
i am also thinking of doing the same.

there is no sign of nvidia doing anything to help an open source driver. AMD have been releasing lots of specs. i expect the radeonHD driver to get better and better.

however i have never bought a graphics card before, and the model numbers are higher confusing.

i currently have an nvidia 7300LE (came with the computer). I have a PCI-E x16 slot.

Am i right in thinking that the series 7 nvidias are equivalent to the R500 ATI cards? so a 7300 is close to a Radeon X1300 or X1350. this is going by wikipedia articles.

also my 7300 is passively cooled, which i like. is it only on entry level card i can get passive cooling. whenever there are pictures of high end cards they seem to have giant fans.

k2t0f12d
February 24th, 2008, 12:32 PM
also my 7300 is passively cooled, which i like. is it only on entry level card i can get passive cooling. whenever there are pictures of high end cards they seem to have giant fans.

That isn't quite true. I installed an nVidia 8600 that was passively cooled. The heatsink on it was pretty big though. Liquid cooling is also an option, but usually that is only easy to implement when everything else in the box is liquid cooled as well.