Thanks to all for all the great input, I'm seeing that the choice of a 790x ( SB750 ) MB is the way to go! But now the dilemma of the video card, I want to stay all AMD ( ATI is AMD ) for a pure approach. I chose the "Radeon HD 4670" since it has the best HD video support ( no 3D game support, but that is not what I care about for this system ). But... for $25 more there is the "Radeon HD 4850" the 48xx is the latest and greatest ATI series which can go head to head with GeForce 9800 GTX ( but again not an issue with me ) Here is the rub: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ati_radeonhd_4850 on page 8 you will see this:
If you are a Linux user but dual-boot into Windows to play many of your games, by all means the Radeon HD 4850 is a great graphics card for you. This graphics card -- which is the first to break the TeraFLOP barrier -- sells for less than $200 USD and it's been shown to deliver excellent performance on Windows. On Linux though, the GeForce 9800GTX, which is now similarly priced to this RV770 GPU, is the performance champion in all but Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and the 2D testing. This should, however, change with future Catalyst updates when this driver bottleneck is addressed. If you care at all about open-source support for discrete graphics cards, get the ATI Radeon HD 4850. The Radeon HD 4850 already works with the xf86-video-ati driver and will be supported by xf86-video-radeonhd with due time. Later this year we should hopefully see open-source 2D, 3D, and video playback arrive for the RV770 graphics processor (along with NDA-free programming documentation for this ASIC). Thus should I invest in the 4850 since it's slated for OSS drivers (and NDA-free access for dev's now that's cool ) or go with the GeForce 9800GTX workhorse that's currently got the better drivers? $128 GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150314 $89.99 Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150337 Seems phoronix labs it a reall good source for Linux HW testing insights: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_rv770_oss http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_evolution On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Chris Knadle <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wednesday 29 July 2009 08:29:06 Frank D. wrote: > > You might want to consider saving some cash and just using onboard video, > > the onboard stuff isn't bad if you're not looking to play games. > > Joe has been doing a bunch of 1080p video stuff which requires either a > decent > videocard with built-in HD video decoder or a hefty CPU. Personally I > never > recommend onboard video because I find it typical to change video cards > about > once every 1.5 years, especially for gamers, and I don't like sharing > onboard > RAM with the video. Also Joe just got done being burnt by getting a > motherboard with onboard video that was troublesome to support under Linux, > so > I definitely understand his desire for not going down that route again. > > > If you're looking for good performance under Linux, ATI drivers are > pretty > > much garbage anyway. > > I can't speak from personal experience but I've read that ATI card > performance > these days is actually higher under Linux than it is under Windows. And if > the ATI driver is open source, that is a nontrivial consideration. > > Consider the way that Nvidia drivers currently work -- they're periodically > split off into separate packages which are then not supported, and the > newer > drivers deprecate older cards. Then what happens is that both the Linux > kernel and X.org are updated such that the old drivers that are no longer > supported require updating before they will function again. :-/ (I'm > currently dealing with this problem with several older Nvidia cards, all of > which are in different states of brokeness.) Repeat that cycle a few times > and > you can understand why having an open source driver that others can support > is > a big deal. And this also explains why binary blobs can _never_ fully fit > our > needs. > > I think this also explains why ATI went away from the binary-only model -- > because it similarly creates forced obsolescence and thus pisses people > off. > > > -- Chris > > -- > > Chris Knadle > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ > Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org > http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug > Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium > Jul 1 - Linux High Performance Computing > Aug 5 - TBD > Sept 2 - Linux and HDTV > _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Jul 1 - Linux High Performance Computing Aug 5 - TBD Sept 2 - Linux and HDTV
