Stuck in the Middle

[killsudo]

Specs
MSI P6N-SLI
Q6600@2.8ghz
2gb OCZ DDR2 800
Nvidia 7600GT
750watt OCZ PSU

I would like to buy a new graphics card to replace my aging Nvidia 7600GT and I planned on buying another 4gbs of OCZ DDR2 800 Ram. After these two upgrades I figured the PC would stay in that state for 2 years. I was about to replace the 7600GT with a MSI nx8800GT until I read just how bad the nvidia 3D drivers are with KDE4. I have been using KDE4 on an all Intel laptop with great excitement and looking forward to replace my XP install on the Desktop.

I need help on deciding which graphics card to buy before all the deals evaporated on the lower end cards. I also am reluctant to support Nvidia if their drivers are no longer going to be effective for my usage especially since development of ATI drivers are picking up and becoming effective in both 2D/3D. I do some light gaming on the pc such as Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, Never Winter Nights 2, Hellgate: London, Warsow, and some random Steam games. None of these games are super important but are nice when its slow. Desktop Effects in Linux through Kwin4 and Compiz are both nice and I like them to be usable. Kwin4 is more important as I am not a fan of either kde3 or Gnome.

1. Just hold onto the 7600GT and wait a little longer.
2. ATI 3870
3. ATI 4850
4. Nvidia 8800GT

I plan to replace XP with Vista 64bit while dual-booting Linux 64bit with KDE4.1. I am not a fan of Vista but XP is finally driving me bonkers as its usability reminds of a fisher price toy which XP resembles.(I honestly find every OS in existence to be useless for my needs. Linux is getting better at tying itself together like OSX while keeping all the awesome tinkering I enjoy. Linux applications are also getting to the point of not needing Windows.)

Sorry for the rant after the question but I needed to blow off some steam. The current state of Operating Systems leaves me depressed and a little upset. So if you want to comment on the video card or Operating System state of affairs go for it. I am all ears.

[Kano]

Well from point of price a NVIDIA 9800 GTX+ would be reasonable. This is faster than a 8800 GT and you usually have got less driver troubles - that means you can use new kernels/xservers much before than when you would need fglrx. Well maybe if you use KDE4 (which I do not use) some say it would be slower (I only use KDE 3.5.5).

[killsudo]

The 9800gtx is way out of my league. From what I can gather Nvidia isn't keeping up with fixing the bugs in their drivers related to Xservers. Would anyone here buy a graphics card from Nvidia at this moment knowing that the drivers are crap when using the latest Xorg and 'hope' Nvidia fixes it? Or should I just hold off on buying an ATI 4850 and let the price drop along with letting the opensource 3D drivers mature? My only concern with ATI is the horror stories I hear when trying to get games to run under WINE and the closed-source driver has some bug that makes the game fail.

[Melcar]

Don't expect to be able to run fglrx with the latest either. Both of these driver sets don't really support the "bleeding edge" stuff most Linux users like to play around with. If you really want to use the latest and greatest of kernels and xservers, the open source drivers are really the only way to go: Intel and ATI (nvidia too if you don't mind the pitfalls).
Fglrx is just horrible in Wine when running heavy 3D games, so if that is important to you stick with nvidia. Still, I think the fglrx driver is in a better shape than the nvidia one right now when it comes to newer cards. Aslo, it seems that both drivers have problems with Kwin4.

Edit: It seems that nvidia just dropped the 9800GTX+ to the $200 price range, so either that one or the HD4850 would be the cards to get at that budget level.

[killsudo]

Thanks for the response and it seems like I was on the right track with my thinking that neither option was really that great. It might actually be nice if Intel releases a video card that can play games yet have some fully open drivers. I guess I am going to hold onto my 7600gt until I see the opensource 3D ATI driver mature enough to justify $175 of my money. I think my video card money would be better spent on 4gbs of ram and a mobile bluetooth gps receiver

[Kano]

A slow gfx card will not work faster when you add more ram. Some rare games like more (about 3 GB) when you use em with high details and Win, but in most cases 2 GB are fully enough.

[Zhick]

@Kano: He said in the first post that he only plays games occasionaly, so I guess the ram-upgrade isn't primary for the reason of better game-performance.
I also think sticking to the 7600GT is the best option atm. From what I hear they have pretty good 2d-performance.

Aslo, it seems that both drivers have problems with Kwin4.

It's running without problems here, but that's on my pretty old X1900XT.

[RobbieAB]

Are there any games (commercial computer games!) that would use a bluetooth GPS reciever?

[Melcar]

Are there any games (commercial computer games!) that would use a bluetooth GPS reciever?

I'm waiting for the day they come up with a "Where's Waldo" type game that uses GPS technology. That would be rad.

[killsudo]

Zhick had it correct. The ram isn't for games, DDR2 has gotten so cheap and a lot of manufacturers seem to be ramping up DDR3 production which I have no plans to build a DDR3 machine anytime soon. I am just future proofing the machine, plus who doesn't want 6gbs of ram when you use a 64bit OS?

The mobile bluetooth gps receiver is for my Cingular 8525(HTC Hermes) so that I can use it as a turn by turn gps navigation when on the road.

My machine does alot of HD video encoding. I encode the files then send them to my server which streams the files out to my ps3 and xbox360. All the files are native to the ps3 then tversity re-encodes the files for the xbox360.

I actually use KDE4.1(beta/RCs) on my work laptop and I love it. I haven't had any issues that made it a show stopper and its improving so fast I can't help but be blown away. I actually want to pick-up python and try writing a plasmoid for kde4(never made a gui app before, only command line apps.)