Which one to buy ?

[Steffen Schaumburg]

>> Here comes that time again: I have to buy a graphic card, I want to buy
>> a radeon, not too long/wide (limited space in the box), reasonably
>> recent and powerful, to be used in a debian/sid system.
>> What do I buy if I want 3D (compiz at least) now, or at least very
>> soon ?
>> I guess if AMD pours money on linux support, it's because they want
>> their stuff to be bought. But it's not clear yet when the latest gen is
>> usable without fglrx.
> I don't know how much you intend to game, but I would recommend a
> Radeon-HD 5750 (basically a half 5850).
> The series won't be replaced by a 67xx series (as far as it looks for
> now) and are for the power they offer quite cheap.
> Open driver support Xrender and OpenGL quite ok.
>
> - Clemens
For gaming a mid-range card like the suggested is a good choice IMHO,
tho' I'm no longer carefully following the field. If you do not intend
to play very recent demanding games on high settings even a low-end card
(or chipset-based GPU) should be sufficient - with the huge advantage
that they don't need active cooling.
One note of caution, using a HD5xxx or higher chip does currently
require -git stuff to get even Compiz afaik, unless you're willing to
(temporarily) use fglrx. HD4xxx and lower (e.g. I have a chipset-HD3xxx)
work great with released kernels and free drivers, tho I don't know if
sid contains sufficiently recent versions.

Steffen