HD 4870 vs GTX 260: My Experience

[deanjo]

you mean, renamend 8800GTS...

No I don't mean that, 8800GTS was a 65 nm part, the 9800 GTX+ and GTS 250 are 55 nm parts and as such are clocked higher as well.

GTS 250 55nm
Processor Cores 128
Graphics Clock (MHz) 738 MHz
Processor Clock (MHz) 1836 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 47.2
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) 1100 MHz
Standard Memory Config 512 MB
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 70.4

9800 GTX+ 55nm
Processor Cores 128
Graphics Clock (MHz) 738 MHz
Processor Clock (MHz) 1836 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 47.2
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) 1100 MHz
Standard Memory Config 512MB
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 70.4

8800GTS (2nd Gen) 65 nm
Processor Cores 128
Graphics Clock (MHz) 650 MHz
Processor Clock (MHz) 1625 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 47.2
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) 970 MHz
Standard Memory Config 512MB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 64

[xeizo]

I can only confirm that Nvidia works almost flawlessly in Linux; I grew tired in experimenting with ATI/Linux and bought the cheapest 9600GT-card I could find. A Gainward, @ ~70$:

1. glxgears -> 23000 fps+ against 550 fps w. ATI(software mesa only, HD4xxx)

2. All native Linux 3D-games run at blistering speed with the highest settings, even FligthGear runs smooth.

3. Did a comparison bench in UT2004 on the phoronix-test-suite against a HD4870 with fglrx(working), the 9600GT was average 5 times faster in all resolutions!

4. Steam installed without a hitch, automatically dled and installed HL2 at my command and I could immediately run it at the highest settings with 4xAA, 16xAF, HDR and reflections on. Totally smooth and with flawless IQ.
That is with a lowly 9600GT.

5. As an unexpected bonus, so does Nvclock work beatifully in trimming the fan duty cycle on the card. At a snap I could make it totally silent at a 25% fan duty cycle during desktop work, I do not need to trim it when I start a game, because the fan duty cycle automatically adjusts itself upwards when it's running 3D under load. Couldn't be better. Originally I was thinking about if I should smack an Arctic Cooling passive gpu-cooler on the card, but thanks to Nvclock there's no necessity

3D is in short working, thank's to Nvidia, I can imagine how beastlike a GTX260 or higher must be under Linux

I'm running 190.18 under 2.6.31-RC5, and at the moment I couldn't be happier. So much that I decided to pass on HD5870 for my main gaming rig and instead wait for the G300

[TheBouleOfFools]

I somewhat regret bringing up wine now. That particular application not working didn't help, but it wasn't the sole reason I was so frustrated. My desktop was completely unusable.

There are certain things you expect out of a normally working desktop, such as being able to stretch it across two screens, being able to log in and out without crashing, watch videos full screen, etc. I was not able to do any of these things. Even if wine didn't work, as long as everything else did (including native Linux games), I would have been fine.

I brought up wine because it was one of the things I primarily use, and I bought these cards specifically for gaming. I understand that wine is experimental, and has no guarantees of working, however I know from prior experience that wine can and does work. Therefore, I feel I have every reason to use it as a metric to compare video cards.

I am not spending $200 to have glorified 2D support in Linux, with the hope that I'll be tossed some spare support scraps from the hardware vendors. You can say that I should just shut up and use Windows if I want top notch support. I don't think that's right, when there *are* solutions out there that do work. It just happens that ATi was not one of them, for me anyhow. Twice.

I'm also mildly annoyed that support for my older card has been completely dropped in recent drivers. I'm stuck with older drivers that work even less, and will not compile against newer kernels. Not much of an issue I suppose, because all I need is 2D support on that computer.

[nanonyme]

Comparing a hardware-independent software rendering solution to an optimized hardware rendering driver sounds a bit, eh, you know. Was there actually a point in the message too? If you benchmark software rendering, you are benchmarking you CPU, not the graphics card. (let alone glxgears is not a benchmark)

[nanonyme]

I am not spending $200 to have glorified 2D support in Linux, with the hope that I'll be tossed some spare support scraps from the hardware vendors. You can say that I should just shut up and use Windows if I want top notch support. I don't think that's right, when there *are* solutions out there that do work. It just happens that ATi was not one of them, for me anyhow. Twice.

A tip if you end up going for Windows: don't be one of the fools looking at retail prices, buy a new computer. You're paying hundreds of dollars extra if you don't buy a whole new computer that ships with Windows.

[TheBouleOfFools]

Comparing a hardware-independent software rendering solution to an optimized hardware rendering driver sounds a bit, eh, you know. Was there actually a point in the message too? If you benchmark software rendering, you are benchmarking you CPU, not the graphics card. (let alone glxgears is not a benchmark)

What I meant is, 3D support was so broken with the ATi card that all I had was a $200 2D video card, which only really worked with the open source xorg 2D driver.

A tip if you end up going for Windows: don't be one of the fools looking at retail prices, buy a new computer. You're paying hundreds of dollars extra if you don't buy a whole new computer that ships with Windows.

I only spent $700 on the parts. A computer with equal specs as mine that I would buy prebuilt costs much more. For example, my brother bought a slower quad-core Gateway desktop for something like $1500.

Windows isn't an issue anymore. Since I got the nvidia card I've been using only Gentoo again.

[nanonyme]

I only spent $700 on the parts. A computer with equal specs as mine that I would buy prebuilt costs much more. For example, my brother bought a slower quad-core Gateway desktop for something like $1500.

Right, in your case it made sense then. The price of that self-built computer with Windows would probably only have been about $1000, after all. There's still plenty of marginal there. (but isn't with all OEM's and hardware combinations which was my point; marginals are treacherous :3)

[dm0rais]

If you are looking for graphics card to use 3D under Linux, I recommend Nvidia.

Fixed ..