[NTLUG:Discuss] Video card recommendations

[Bryan J. Smith]

Jay Urish <j at unixwolf.net> wrote:
> I am looking into the Geforce 256p2n362lx which is supposed
> to be dual  head with 256M ram.

???  What product is that  ???
Looks like a vendor product number.

For PCI-Express 16 channel (PCIe x16) under Linux, I
recommend:

Budget ($50-75):  NV45 series
- nVidia GeForce 6200 _true_ 128MB
- nVidia GeForce 6200 TurboCache 256MB (64MB physical)

Mid-range ($150-175):  NV43 series
- nVidia GeForce 6600GT 128MB DDR3

Performance ($300-450):  NG70 series
- nVidia GeForce 7800GT 256MB DDR3 (Linux support?)
- nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 256MB DDR3 (1.0-7676 driver)

I can't recommend the GeForce 6800/GT/Ultra for PCIe.

I also can't recomment the GeForce 6600 (non-GT) with
non-DDR3, even though some boards have 256MB, because the
memory bandwidth is much needed.  The "GT" versions might
only have 128MB, but they have 2x the memory bandwidth thanx
to DDR3 SDRAM of the non-GT versions.

Also be wary of the "TurboCache" which means it leverages the
16 channel * 250MB/channel = 4GBps PCI-Express to main
memory.  The 256MB versions only have 32-64MB of physical DDR
SDRAM on-board.


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