GFeforce 7800 GLX

[zba78]

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...622/index.html

So it has arrived. Brand spanking new, gun tooting, all conquering, 24-pipes of the Geforce 7800 GLX. The numbers are very impressive. But £400+ for a graphics card(and perhaps close to £900 for SLI). What nutter's gonna pay that much just to play doom 3 fast?

Oh hang on, not everyone's as poor as me. I need a better job...

[techieMoe]

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050622/index.html

So it has arrived. Brand spanking new, gun tooting, all conquering, 24-pipes of the Geforce 7800 GLX. The numbers are very impressive. But £400+ for a graphics card(and perhaps close to £900 for SLI). What nutter's gonna pay that much just to play doom 3 fast?

Oh hang on, not everyone's as poor as me. I need a better job...

Well, I admit I was one of those "nutters" who paid $320USD when the Geforce 6800 came out (just to play Doom 3). It still runs beautifully though, so unless I can upgrade to a 6800 Ultra or GT for a reasonable price now I'm not looking to upgrade my display card for another year or so yet.

[zba78]

Well, I admit I was one of those "nutters" who paid $320USD when the Geforce 6800 came out (just to play Doom 3). It still runs beautifully though, so unless I can upgrade to a 6800 Ultra or GT for a reasonable price now I'm not looking to upgrade my display card for another year or so yet.

Fair play. You know I was only joking about the nutter thing, right

I'm really stuck now. As I'm on a tight budget I was planning to buy a Geforce 6200 in the next week or so. But looking at what is out (7800, 6800, 6600, X850, X800) it just seems such old hat.

To be honest I've seen a wonderfuld deal on a 128mb radeon 9800 pro but I'm not sure how easy it will be to set it up in Arch/slack. All I want to do is get the desktop running at 1280x1024 @ 24bpp with xorg 6.8.x (not bothered about 3d) but people seem to say ati+linux is a real headache

[techieMoe]

To be honest I've seen a wonderfuld deal on a 128mb radeon 9800 pro but I'm not sure how easy it will be to set it up in Arch/slack. All I want to do is get the desktop running at 1280x1024 @ 24bpp with xorg 6.8.x (not bothered about 3d) but people seem to say ati+linux is a real headache

I had a 128MB 9800 Pro. Trust me: stay far FAR away. You'd be much better off even if you just want 2D going with an Nvidia card. The 6200 is far from "old hat". It still beats the FX line cards in performance and it's at a good price point now for those "on a budget" IMO.

On a side note, the 9800 requires you to plug it into your power supply, while the 6200 does not. It's a little thing, but nice if you don't have many plugs free.

[zba78]

Thanks for the advice TM. Do you say "stay far away" because of linux issues or just the general performance of the card?

btw, the gf6200 I'm looking at is this (not that I'm going to buy it from that store). Hopefully it'll play far cry well (just started playing it yesterday, looks like a fantastic game)

[techieMoe]

Thanks for the advice TM. Do you say "stay far away" because of linux issues or just the general performance of the card?

Both. If you really want the full details, look at the hardware review section of my site. Long story short, I battled valiantly to get the drivers working and in the end the card fried itself. I was not impressed.

[Curlydave]

To be honest I've seen a wonderfuld deal on a 128mb radeon 9800 pro but I'm not sure how easy it will be to set it up in Arch/slack. All I want to do is get the desktop running at 1280x1024 @ 24bpp with xorg 6.8.x (not bothered about 3d) but people seem to say ati+linux is a real headache

Is the 9800pro essentially a much better card than the 6200? Yep. Do its Linux drivers blow to an extent that it will probably perform below it? You bet. ATI makes fine cards, but not for Linux.

[techieMoe]

Is the 9800pro essentially a much better card than the 6200? Yep. Do its Linux drivers blow to an extent that it will probably perform below it? You bet. ATI makes fine cards, but not for Linux.

ATI may very well make fine cards, but mine wasn't one of them. I stand by my assertion that Nvidia is the best brand for gaming in Linux. The 9800 may be the better card on paper, but with dysfunctional Linux drivers it's no better than a VESA framebuffer.

[Curlydave]

Is the 9800pro essentially a much better card than the 6200? Yep. Do its Linux drivers blow to an extent that it will probably perform below it? You bet. ATI makes fine cards, but not for Linux.

ATI may very well make fine cards, but mine wasn't one of them. I stand by my assertion that Nvidia is the best brand for gaming in Linux. The 9800 may be the better card on paper, but with dysfunctional Linux drivers it's no better than a VESA framebuffer.

Exactly. Nvidia is, without a doubt the best way to go for Linux.

[borromini]

A Radeon 9700 user here, not much of an ATI-fanboy, but I like their cards... But if you want graphic performance under linux, pick an nVidia... They have way better support. The ATI drivers suck big time, when it comes to performance and when it comes to installation