Which one to buy ?

[Xavier Bestel]

On Sun, 2010-11-14 at 02:21 +0100, Steffen Schaumburg wrote:
> >> 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.

Ok, thanks to everyone who answered. I'll settled on a 5770 (I've found
there exists a single-slot version), which looks like a good compromise
(for me) between GPU power, driver readiness, and size.
Thanks again for the info !

	Xav