On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Robert Bridge <rob...@robbieab.com> wrote: > nVidia at the moment is a bit of a risk, as there is a whole raft of > issues going on with nVidia hardware. If their drivers work, they will > likely give better performance and features than AMDs options, and so > long as the hardware holds up. Read up on nVidia bumps issue for more > information. > > However... AMD have an open-source strategy and an official > open-source driver stack. Their open-source drivers are good, and > getting better, but are not feature complete yet, nor really > competitive for performance in 3D games. I'm not aware of any major > issues surrounding AMD graphics, except the general complaints that > the FOSS drivers aren't yet good enough. > > YMMV, > RobbieAB > >
Thanks for the pointer on the nvidia problem. I hadn't heard about that, and: 1) I've got a 2 year old out-of-warranty Compaq laptop that's having trouble booting. As best I can tell it's not the disk and it's not memory, so... 2) I just put a fanless 9500GT-based card in my wife's new machine Guess I'm right in the thick of it as testing for lead vs eutectic bumps is not something you can figure out with a piece of software... I used to work in the semiconductor industry. The thing I'd worry about is whether the company doing packaging for nvidia, and it's almost certainly not nvidia themselves, have used these same high-lead bumps that they sold nvidia. If they have then anyone's chips could potentially have these same problems. OK, so let's investigate AMD/ATI at bit more. Am I understanding Volker's response that I want to look at the 5000 Series from ATI? http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5000.aspx Looking at NewEgg I think all the 5850 & 5870's are just more expensive than I want to pay. There are some 5730's for around $240, but tax and shipping is going to drive that over $300 which is still pretty step for something I won't use much. As I won't game and sometimes do music (writing, recording, listening, etc.) much I would appreciate quiet (i.e. - fanless) everyday whereas gaming might happen just once in awhile. So far I haven't spotted any 5700 or 5800 that are fanless. I do see 5500 and 5600 devices: 5570 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131349 5670 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131348 Prices are acceptable on both of those, although I'm sure the performance is probably lacking a bit. I'll have to look around at relative benchmarks to understand anything about the performance metrics. Thanks, Mark
