Need GPU / GP-GPU advice!

Impotence

Impotence

May the source be with u!
GPGPU - Wikipedia

First of all, hello everyone! It’s been awhile since I have been around regularly but I will make more of an effort from now on! :)

I'm looking to get myself a new graphics card as the one I currently have is an insult to the rest of the machine! I have...

- 3.9TB of storage (3 x 1TB, 1x 500GB, 1x 400GB)
- AMD64 AM2+ X4 9950+ Black Edition
- 8GB DDR2 (Geil Black dragon, 4x 2GB)

...and an Nvidia Geforce 6800 :crying:

I'm looking for a something that will eat recent games for breakfast on medium-high settings and allow me to play around with cracking WPA etc.

- ATI/AMD (Don't care what Nvidia has to offer unless its source code!).
- Support for 4 way SLI (my current motherboard does not support it, but my next one probably will).
- At least 1GB of GDDR (not sure on this but 512 seems a bit small).

I think THIS is the sort of thing that I want (that’s at the very top end of my budget, if only I could afford the X2 version... ) but choosing a Graphics card can be quite confusing due to the number of brands, GPU's and models!
 
Am i better off with a single 4890 or a 4850 X2? (ignore the additional DVI interfaces, i only need two!).

The 4890 has a faster gpu, faster memory and 1GB of ram (the X2 has 512MB per core), but the both have 800 stream processors per GPU, giving the X2 1600!, which i *think* will give the X2 a massave advantage when used with something like pyrit
 
Overall the 4850x2 will perform better than one 4890 because it has more stream processors. go with the 4850x2 they are going for around the same money as one 4890. but if you can afford it and have a crossfire ready motherboard 2x 4890 is an other alternative.
 
Impy said:
- 3.9TB of storage (3 x 1TB, 1x 500GB, 1x 400GB)
- AMD64 AM2+ X4 9950+ Black Edition
- 8GB DDR2 (Geil Black dragon, 4x 2GB)
Click to expand...
that severely takes the p1ss out of my rig, my specs:
  • P4 3Ghz (old single core)
  • 1 Ghz DDR2
  • various HDD ranging from 8.4G to 750G, only using 750G (not many)
  • old GeForce 2 Ti
anyway the 48*0 seriously kicks the ass of almost / probablyevery thing else on the market
 
It's kinda weird that you have tons of Linux stuff in your siggy, but you prefer a video card brand who's Linux support totally sucks ass. I just picked up a GTX 280/1GB for $200/USD brand new, retail. I mean, that's not a bad value, right? Then again, if you don't plan to use Linux much, ATI is probably a better value right now, at least in western countries.
 
It's kinda weird that you have tons of Linux stuff in your siggy, but you prefer a video card brand who's Linux support totally sucks ass.
Click to expand...

My girlfriends ATI 4850 (512MB) works fine in ubuntu on a 22" widescreen (1680x1050) after a small amount of tweaking (it was defaulting too 1280x1024),

I might have missed it, but as far as i know nvidia has not shown any intent to release open drivers (and has refused too several times after letters & petitions).
 
Impotence said:
My girlfriends ATI 4850 (512MB) works fine in ubuntu on a 22" widescreen (1680x1050) after a small amount of tweaking (it was defaulting too 1280x1024),
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3D on ATI hardware is worthless on Linux. FPS is low, a lot of features aren't supported, and if you have a newer card on a newer kernel, you'll be lucky to get them working at all.

Impotence said:
I might have missed it, but as far as i know nvidia has not shown any intent to release open drivers (and has refused too several times after letters & petitions).
Click to expand...
When ATI actually has open source drivers, I'll consider switching. For the time being, all we have is terrible closed sourced drivers and a lot of empty promises. NVidia's drivers are closed too, but at least they work well.
 
I just got a bargin :D

Someone was selling a 2GB 4850 X2 with recipt from scan.co.uk dated 22/06/09 (2 year warrenty) for £168, scan are still selling them at £216! a small push on the budget, but definetly worth it for another gigabyte of memory :)
 
Impotence said:
I just got a bargin :D

Someone was selling a 2GB 4850 X2 with recipt from scan.co.uk dated 22/06/09 (2 year warrenty) for £168, scan are still selling them at £216! a small push on the budget, but definetly worth it for another gigabyte of memory :)
Click to expand...
ATI's cards are good these days, and I'm always pulling for AMD. But their video drivers are inexcusable. ATI's drivers have always sucked even in Windows, but in Linux they are completely intolerable. If they at least had closed drivers with comparable features and performance to NVidia's, I would be a lot more open to use their products.

I hope for all our sakes they really do open their video drivers. In that case, AMD/ATI would be king on Linux, and I imagine having an alternative to Catalyst would only help them gain share on the Windows side of things. If they do that, I'll be looking for ATI bargains right along side you. :)
 
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